Thermodynamics, Electricity, and Magnetism/Gauss' Law

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"Gauss's Law", also known as "Gauss's Flux Theorem", is a law in electrostatics that connects the quantity of a charge and the electric flux produced by it. This theorem was formulated by Carl Friedrich Gauss in 1835, but was not published until 1867. It states that:

The net electric flux through any closed surface is equal to 1ε0 times the net electric charge enclosed within that closed surface.[1]

It is one of the four Maxwell's equations which form the basis of classical electrodynamics. Mathematically it can be represented as: ΦE = Q.1ε0

  1. Serway, Raymond A. (1996). Physics for Scientists and Engineers with Modern Physics, 4th edition. p. 687.