what will happen if two positive charges travelling and meet at the same node or point. so then what will happen.

 

what will happen if two positive charges travelling and meet at the same node or point. so then what will happen.

As far as i know they will be repelled. They will reach each other very closely but they will never touch. I am not a scientist but that what i guess from my knowledge about this subject.

 

All charges move under the influence of electric field and it requires immense amount of energy to bring them very close together. So in a circuit, they move without touching each other, I suppose.

 

All charges move under the influence of electric field and it requires immense amount of energy to bring them very close together. So in a circuit, they move without touching each other, I suppose.

Yes, that is what i think too, they dont touch each other

 

Coulomb's force law applies here.

As there two charges get closer and closer, there force increases exponentially.

(distance between them squared in the denominator.)

As mrmount and mik3 mentioned they won't touch - notice mathematically you can't have a zero in the denominator - meaning have the two at the same point.

A very interesting study would be if you shot the two down and could maintain a straight line - just what would happen.

If you are talking individual atomic particles then things may get complicated.

If you are talking charged things on the macro level then we can turn to classical physics and conservation of momentum and other laws.

 

Some of the early work in high-energy physics involved proton-proton collisions. These experiments at BNL and other places were certainly attainable with 1965's technology. What happens when paticles collide is that new paticles and energy are released. It was at about this time the Murray Gell-Mann articulated the quark hypothesis.

Here are two more recent papers
http://www.bnl.gov/userscenter/Thesis/2007/Horaguchi_Thesis.pdf
http://arxiv.org/PS_cache/arxiv/pdf/0710/0710.1755v1.pdf

 

Papabravo - wow!

Good links

I knew particle / anti-particles had been smashed togther.

I did not recall the proton-proton collision.

I (obviously) retract my comment that they won't touch -

If you can get like particles to collide the result will be lots of energies and pieces flying everywhere.

 

notice mathematically you can't have a zero in the denominator

Actually you can.

All known charge(d particles) have mass.

All particles with mass also obey the laws of gravitational attraction, which have the same form as Coulombs law.

So as you bring like charged particles closer the electrostatic force repels and the gravitational force attracts.

The combination results in a classic zero/zero or infinity/infinity situation - a Limit.

You can arrange for attraction to predominate if you can make the charge/mass ratio small enough.

If I have time over the weekend I will publish the equations, but it is really very simple to do for yourself, simply divide Coulombs equation by Netwon's and let the separation approach zero in the limit.

 

studioit,

I would like to see the work if you get time to type it up.

I have never heard or seen this discussed. ( I did have electromagnetics is college but never discussed this) I would like to look over your explanation.

I am familiar with limit, L'Hospitals rule and so on. I do recall problems ending up with 0/0 or infinity/infinity and applying L'Hospital technique to get a reasonable answer.

 

My wild guess would be that greater than light speed velocity would be necessary to collide them.. Gravity is dwarfed by electric force when dealing with any measurable number of particles.. Also, at VERY small distances, weak/electroweak, and strong forcescome into play in a major way.. You might want to look into Rutherford's (or his lab assistant's) work.. Not exactly on par with your question, but may give insight..

 

Coulombs law is valid only in static or slow moving conditions.
In this case of an atom smasher, the velocities would be fairly high. One approach to find a solution could be using Lienhard-Wienchert potentials. But I guess that really complicates it.

Theoritically, under the assumptions of just classical physics the energy requirements to bring together two such point positive charges would be infinite and hence such a situation impossible.

However we know classical physics fails at several levels (very small sizes and very high speeds). Interesting problem to work on,