Answer to Question #45979 in Electricity and Magnetism for esosa

Question

he following are true about electric field lines except that they
are drawn such that the magnitude of the field is proportional to the number of lines crossing a unit area perpendicular to the lines
do not intersect one another
are discontinuous and may terminate in a vacuum
give the direction of motion of a unit positive test-charge under the action of the electrostatic force

Answer 1

Solution: a useful way of representing thevector nature of an electric field is through the use of electric field lines
of force. These patterns of lines point in the direction that a positive test
charge would accelerate of placed upon the line. There are some conventions of
drawing such patterns of electric field lines. First of all, more charged objects produce strongerelectric field, therefore they are surrounded by more field lines. Electric
field lines should also never cross. If the lines cross each other at some
point, then there must be two different values of electric field with their own
direction at that given point. A charged particle willexperience then two different forces at the same point in space and this cannot
happen. One can see that we have covered properties in a), b), d). Variant c)
contains the misconceptions: electric field lines are continuous (electric
field produced by some charge exist everywhere in space (even in vacuum), so
also the electric field lines as its representation).
Answer:
c) are discontinuousand may terminate in a vacuum.