Two equal charges are placed at a separation of 1.0 m. What should be the magnitude of the charges so that the force between them equals the weight of a 50 kg person?

Given:

Mass of the person

Weight of the person,

Let the magnitude of charge on both be q.

Here,

Distance of separation,

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Formula used:

By Coulomb’s law, the electric force is given by:

Where ϵ₀ is the permittivity of free space

k is the electrostatic constant

q₁ and q₂ are the magnitude of charges

r is the distance of separation between the charges

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Rearranging, we get

Substituting the corresponding values, we get