Physics I / Electric Field and Gauss's Law
Practice question · Multiple choice

A balloon is charged and its charge stays fixed. If you double the radius of an imaginary sphere drawn around it, what happens to the total electric flux through the sphere?

Hints
  1. Gauss’s law: ΦE=Qenc/ε0\Phi_E = Q_{enc}/\varepsilon_0. Does rr appear anywhere?
  2. The field weakens as 1/r21/r^{2} but the area grows as r2r^{2}, watch them cancel.
Show the answer

B. Nothing, flux depends only on the enclosed charge

Why

Flux counts field lines crossing the surface, and every line from the charge crosses any enclosing sphere exactly once. The 1/r21/r^{2} field and r2r^{2} area cancel perfectly, that cancellation is Gauss’s law.

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