Abstract
On moving from contact interactions to interactions at a distance, two things change. Because there is no point of contact between the two interacting objects, specifying the object on which a given force is acting becomes much less ambiguous: a clear choice has to be made of the object concerned. That is an advantage. But the situation is complicated by the fact that a given object becomes capable of interacting with another regardless of their respective locations. The whole of space is involved twice over. When analysing such situations, we must expect to have to add forces “created”, as we often say, by a large number of objects; the principle of superposition comes into play, which is discussed in more detail later. On a macroscopic scale, it may be possible to summarise all the actions1 exerted on a body at a distance quite simply in terms of a kind of equivalent point of application; gravity is an example of this2. The situation can also be considerably simplifed in the case of the inverse square forces (proportional to 1/r2) involved in conditions of spherical symmetry3.
In association with Sylvie Rainson, the main author of the study
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Viennot, L. (2003). Superposition of electric fields. In: Viennot, L. (eds) Teaching Physics. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-0121-2_5
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