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cherry_cat
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Homework Statement
The electric field at a location C points north, and the magnitude is 1*10^6 N/C. Where should you place a proton and an electron, at equal distances from C, to produce this field? Give a numerical answer and a direction for each particle (North, South, East or West).
Homework Equations
E=k q/r^2
E=k q1 q2/r^2
The Attempt at a Solution
Because the distances are equal, I set two sets of the equation equal to each other (one for the electron and one for the proton)
k q1 q2/r^2=k q1 q2/r^2
q2/r^2=q2/r^2
1.6e-19/r^2=-1.6e-19/r^2
Taking square root of each side
√1.6e-19/r=√-1.6e-19/r
r√1.6e-19=r√-1.6e-19
Here I realized that this wasn't going to work, because I would be dividing r by r and also taking the square root of a negative number.
I thought the best way to do this would be by setting the two equations equal to each other as the distance must be the same, but the way I went about solving this problem didn't work.
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