‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

Coulomb's law remains tricky to test at home

29 points · 23 comments · surprisetalk

  1. MengerSponge · · focus · HN ↗
    It's probably easier to verify Gauss's Law, which then gives you Coulomb's law for free.

    Direct verification of inverse square laws is hard! For electromagnetic interactions (ie Coulomb&#x27;s law) you can use scattering. If you want to do a static experiment (Coulomb&#x27;s Law the hard way or gravity) you probably need a torsion pendulum experiment. AFAIK the best in the world at that are at UW in the Eöt-Wash group: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npl.washington.edu&#x2F;eotwash&#x2F;torsion-balances" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.npl.washington.edu&#x2F;eotwash&#x2F;torsion-balances

Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.