The coulomb: the unit of charge

Coulomb's Balance

The inverse square law was established to within ±10% by Coulomb. He was not the only one to do this at the time but he published his results. He used pith balls and a delicate torsion balance.

The Coulomb is an enormous unit. Charges in wires are balanced (positive and negative). Isolating a whole Coulomb of charge and placing it on, say a conducting sphere the size of a basketball, will result in lightening-type sparks literally flying.

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