Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Verified for the 2026 exam
Verified for the 2026 exam•Written by the Fiveable Content Team • Last updated September 2025
Definition
Electric force refers to the attractive or repulsive force between two charged objects. It depends on their charges and distance between them and follows Coulomb's law.
Related terms
Coulomb's law: Coulomb's law states that the magnitude of the electrostatic force between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of their magnitudes and inversely proportional to the square of their separation distance.
Electrostatics: Electrostatics is the study of stationary or slow-moving electrical charges at rest, including concepts such as charge distribution, conductors, insulators, and polarization.
Electromagnetic interaction: Electromagnetic interaction refers to forces arising from both electric and magnetic fields acting on charged particles.