• Question: Why does charged matter have an electrical field?

    Asked by crouchingmurloc to Ben, Dave, Ed, Sam, Susana on 18 Jun 2013.
    • Photo: David Briggs

      David Briggs answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      I don’t actually know ❗
      What a fantastic question!

      Charged matter has an electric field because… it does!
      Electric fields are fundamental properties of charged matter – but WHY THEY HAPPEN is a “spooky action-at-a-distance” phenomenon that I honestly don’t fully understand. This might be a great question to ask the Physicists in the Quantum Zone – I bet they could give you a better answer than I could!

      This question is a great example of the fact that scientists tend to specialise on certain (often very small) areas, but this does not mean that they know everything about subjects outside their specialisation!

    • Photo: Sam Horrell

      Sam Horrell answered on 18 Jun 2013:

      This is definitely physics beyond my understanding I’m afraid. Most of the articles I looked at explaining electric fields and charged particles made my brain hurt. Like David said, track down a physicist and make them sweat as much as you made us. You may even get an answer. Something to do with protons and electrons maybe?

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