What is the Electric Dipole Moment?
In physics, for any given system of charges, the electric dipole moment is a measure of the separation of positive and negative charges within that system. This effectively amounts to being a measure of the system’s polarity. To understand this, let’s begin with a very simple system of two point charges, one with a charge of +q, and another with a charge of -q, separated by some displacement, d. We would calculate the electric dipole moment, p, of the system in the following way: p = q.d In other words, the electric dipole moment is the same as the total charge q multiplied by the displacement vector, d. This is commonly known as the ideal point dipole. Notice that the magnitude of the electric dipole moment is completely dependent on the displacement such that the dipole gains more polarity as the two charges move further and further from one another. If the two charges aren’t separated at all, the electric dipole moment is reduced to zero. There can be no polarity if there is no sepa
