Are Electrostatic forces Asymmetric?
New Topic Reply to Topic Printer Friendly Author Topic KoenigMKII United Kingdom 42 Posts Posted – 09 Sep 2002 : 19:16:15 I am not a phyicsist, so please excuse me if I make little sense 🙂 At school I was taught that the attractive force between +ve and -ve charges was equal and opposite to the repulsive force between like charges. For the sake of arguement, imagine that this axiom is very nearly true but that the attraction between unlike charges is very slightly greater than the repulsion between like charges. Now imagine a planet sized mass which at the most basic level is a vast collection of charges, i.e. quarks and electrons. Consider a small 1KG test mass just released from the edge of a tall building. Now consider all the negative charges in the 1 KG mass, if electostatic attaction is very slighty greater than repulsion, the +ve charges in the Earth’s mass will attract the mass slighty more than the -ve charges in the earth will repel them. The exact same arguement applies to
