ultimately, once they’re infinitely far away from each other, they won’t be able to feel each other’s
presence.
The electrical potential energy of a charged particle is given by this equation:
Here, q is the charge on the particle, and V is the voltage.
It is extremely important to note that electric potential and electric field are not the same thing. This
example should clear things up:
Three points, labeled A, B, and C, are found in a uniform electric field. At which point will a positron
(a positively charged version of an electron) have the greatest electrical potential energy?Electric field lines point in the direction that a positive charge will be forced, which means that our
positron, when placed in this field, will be pushed from left to right. So, just as an object in Earth’s
gravitational field has greater potential energy when it is higher off the ground (think “mgh ”), our
positron will have the greatest electrical potential energy when it is farthest from where it wants to get to.
The answer is A.
We hope you noticed that, even though the electric field was the same at all three points, the electric
potential was different at each point.
How about another example?
A positron is given an initial velocity of 6 × 10^6 m/s to the right. It travels into a uniform electric field,
directed to the left. As the positron enters the field, its electric potential is zero. What will be the
electric potential at the point where the positron has a speed of 1 × 10^6 m/s?