Answer to Question #115389 in Electricity and Magnetism for Abejirin Boluwatife favour

Question

A hydrogen atom be made up of a single proton and a single electron.the proton has a charge of+e and electron has +e.in the ground state of the atom the electron orbits the proton at most probable distance of 5.39*10^-11m determine the electric force on the electron due to the proton

Answer 1

Let us determine the electric force between two particles with charges $q_1$ and $q_2$ . According to the Coulomb's law (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coulomb%27s_law) force can be calculated as

$F = k_e\dfrac{q_1q_2}{r^2},$ where $k_e$ is Coulomb's constant ($k_e = 9\times10^9 \,N\cdot\,m^2/C^2$ ) and $r$ is the distance between charges.

Therefore, we may calculate the module of force

$F = 9\times10^9\dfrac{(1.60\cdot10^{-19})\cdot(1.60\cdot10^{-19})}{(5.39\cdot10^{-11})^2} = 7.93\cdot10^{-8}\,N.$