# Charles Coulomb

In existographies, Charles Coulomb (219-149 BE) (1736-1806 ACM) (IQ:170|#370) (PR:1,673|65AE / physicist:35) (Becker 160:82|3L) (SIG:16) (CR:16) (LH:2) (TL:18) was a French physicist, civil engineering, and military engineer, noted for []

## Overview

Coulomb's torsion balance.

In 1766, Joseph Priestley inferred that the force of attraction or repulsion between two small charged spheres would be inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.[1]

In 1785, Coulomb, in an effort to prove Priestley’s inference, and building on the work of work of Franz Aepinus (1758), John Robinson (1769), and Henry Cavendish (c.1772), built a torsion balance[2], as shown below, where sphere A (moveable) has charge q1 and sphere B (fixed) has charge q2, with where attached to a tensioned spring, used Hooke's spring law[3], showed that charged spheres have an inverse proportionality relationship, as shown adjacent. Namely, Coulomb derived the following equation, experimentally:

${\displaystyle F=k_{e}{\frac {q_{1}q_{2}}{r^{2}}}}$

where r is the distance of separation of the spheres and ke is Coulomb's constant, which shows that the force of attraction (or repulsion) between the two charged spheres is proportional to the product of the charges and inversely proportional to the square of their distance of separation.

In 1873, James Maxwell, in his Treatise on Electricity and Magnetism, via his four governing equations on the phenomenon of electricity and magnetism, showed how to derive Coulomb's law from general principles.[4]

## Quotes

### Quotes | On

The following are quotes on Coulomb:

“Ohm found that the results could be summed up in such a simple law that he who runs may read it, and a schoolboy now can predict what a Faraday then could only guess at roughly. By Ohm's discovery a large part of the domain of electricity became annexed by Coulomb's discovery of the law of inverse squares, and completely annexed by Green's investigations. Poisson attacked the difficult problem of induced magnetization, and his results, though differently expressed, are still the theory, as a most important first approximation. Ampere brought a multitude of phenomena into theory by his investigations of the mechanical forces between conductors supporting currents and magnets. Then there were the remarkable researches of Faraday, the prince of experimentalists, on electrostatics and electrodynamics and the induction of currents. These were rather long in being brought from the crude experimental state to a compact system, expressing the real essence. Unfortunately, in my opinion, Faraday was not a mathematician. It can scarcely be doubted that had he been one, he would have anticipated much later work. He would, for instance, knowing Ampere's theory, by his own results have readily been led to Neumann’s theory, and the connected work of Helmholtz and Thomson. But it is perhaps too much to expect a man to be both the prince of experimentalists and a competent mathematician.”
— Oliver Heaviside (1891), “Electro-magnetic Theory II”[5]
“Have been traveling and caught two looks at this thread. To define ‘life’ one must first define its ingredients, which are simply light and mass, each having a different role. These ‘roles' are motion and growth, as mentioned earlier, to be elaborated upon my return to Chicago. For now, consider that light cannot ‘grow’, but ‘moves’ without recognition of time, while mass really cannot move, but grows AND recognizes time. This synergy is the origin of life which evolves causing a balance between energy depletion (entropy) and energy accumulation ... for limited time depending on ‘size’. Gravity and Coulomb laws represent this synergy.”
— Ted Erikson (2010), “Origin of Life” (Ѻ) thread #50, Dec 14
“While we’re on the topic of “anthropic principles”, if Allah, as you believe, fine-tuned α (alpha), the fine-structure constant, equal to the ratio of the product of the Coulomb constant and the square of the electric charge and the product of the reduced Planck constant and speed of light, what fine-tuned constants did Allah bring into existence so that the Buraq was able to fly Muhammad around faster than the speed of light?”
— Libb Thims (2014), “Beg-Thims dialogue” (Ѻ), post #19, Sep 4

### Quotes | By

The following are quotes by Coulomb:

“The sciences are monuments devoted to the public good; each citizen owes to them a tribute proportional to his talents. While the great men, carried to the summit of the edifice, draw and put up the higher floors, the ordinary artists scattered in the lower floors, or hidden in the obscurity of the foundations, must only seek to improve what cleverer hands have created.”
— Charles Coulomb (1776), “Article” [6]

## End matter

### References

1. Kirby, Richard. (1990). Engineering in History (pg. 331). Courier Corporation.
2. Deschanel, Augustin. (1891). Elementary Treatise on Natural Philosophy, Volume Three (pg. 559). Publisher.
3. Hooke’s law – Wikipedia.
4. Heaviside, Oliver. (1891). “Electro-magnetic Theory II” (Ѻ), The Electrician, Jan 16.
5. Coulomb, Charles. (1776). “Article”, Memoirs presented by Various Scholars at the Academy of Sciences (Mémoires présentés par divers Savants à l'Académie des Sciences) (§:Introduction, pg. 4) (Ѻ). Publisher.