Physics I / Electric Potential and Capacitance
Practice question · True or false

Electric field lines lie along equipotential surfaces.

Hints
  1. How much work moves a charge along an equipotential?
  2. None, so the force has no component there.
Show the answer

False

Why

False. They are perpendicular. Moving along an equipotential does no work, so the field can have no component in that direction, the field points along the steepest potential change, which is normal to the surface. It is the same relation as a gradient to its contour.

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