Coulomb

Coulomb is a unit of electric charge in the International System of Units (SI). It is defined as the charge transported by a constant current of one ampere in one second. The symbol for the coulomb is C. The coulomb is named after Charles-Augustin de Coulomb, a French physicist who contributed significantly to the study of electrostatics, the branch of physics that deals with the phenomena and properties of stationary or slow-moving electric charges.

Definition

The coulomb is defined as the quantity of electricity transported in 1 second by a current of 1 ampere. In terms of the elementary charge (the absolute value of the charge of an electron), one coulomb is approximately equal to 6.242×10^18 elementary charges.

Coulomb's Law

The coulomb is also related to Coulomb's law, which describes the force between two charges. According to Coulomb's law, the force between two charges is directly proportional to the product of their charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.

Applications

The coulomb is used in the definition of many other units in the SI system, such as the volt (one joule per coulomb), the ampere (one coulomb per second), and the farad (one coulomb per volt).

See also

• Electric charge
• Electrostatics
• International System of Units

References

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  Diagram illustrating Coulomb's law
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  Portrait of Charles de Coulomb