Electrostatic Induction - Induced Charge Resides On The Surface

Induced Charge Resides On The Surface

Since the mobile charges in the interior of a metal object are free to move in any direction, there can never be a static concentration of charge inside the metal; if there was, it would attract opposite polarity charge to neutralize it. Therefore the mobile charges move under the influence of the external charge until they reach the surface of the metal and collect there, where they are constrained from moving by the boundary.

This establishes the important principle that electrostatic charges on conductive objects reside on the surface of the object. External electric fields induce surface charges on metal objects that exactly cancel the field within. Since the field is the gradient of the electrostatic potential, another way of saying this is that in electrostatics, the potential (voltage) throughout a conductive object is constant.

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