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What's the Relation between Potential of mechanics and electricity?

Physics Asked by Epsilon on February 10, 2021

As we know that for a conservative force field, there is associated a Potential with the force.
But we know there is a potential in electricity (That’s voltage).
My question is that is there any relation between this potential with the ‘potential’ associated with conservative force?
Is yes? How and where is the conservative force in electricity?
If no? Why then we term it as potential?
I’m sorry if my question is too silly. 😛

One Answer

The electrostatic potential is a potential just like any other mechanical potential. Since the force on a particle with charge $q$ is $vec F_text{stat} = qvec E$, the potential $phi'$ that gives the force as $vec F_text{stat} = - vec nabla phi'$ is just the electrostatic potential (the "voltage") times $-q$. The electrostatic force is a perfectly ordinary conservative force.

If you have currents, however, the full electromagentic force is not conservative in the classical mechanical sense. It has a generalized kind of potential, though, which is the four-potential of electrodynamics.

Answered by ACuriousMind on February 10, 2021

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