DESCRIPTION:
An animation of the motion of a negatively charged
particle attracted by the positively charged sphere
of a van de Graaff generator.
When the charge is moving
away from the sphere and slowing down, its kinetic energy
is decreasing and the energy is being stored in the
local electric field as that field is stretched. When
the charge is moving toward from the sphere and speeding
up, its kinetic energy is increasing as the energy previously
stored in the stretched field is released.
The motion of the texture patterns
used to present the field is in the direction of the Poynting flux, that is, in the direction of the electrostatic energy flow, and you can see the energy moving as described above in the animation.
A description of how we produce the animation patterns which move in the direction of energy flow is given HERE.
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