Visualizing Electric Field Lines

Electric field lines show how a charged object affects the space around it. A source charge creates an electric field, and that field can exert electric force on another charged object called the test charge. The electric field is a vector at each point in space, so it has both size and direction.

The electric field is fundamental to understanding electricity and charge-charge interactions and is closely related to important quantities such as electrical potential.

Any charged object generates an electric field. The magnitude of the field is dependent on the quantity of charge on the object, and the distance from the object where th...