Question

Who invented electrostatics?

Answer 1

Electrostatics is a branch of physics which studies the charges kept at rest, also called static charges. The most fundamental law to electrostatics is the Coulomb’s law which gives the force acting between two static forces as related to the magnitude of the charges and the distance between them

Complete step-by-step solution:
Electrostatics is a branch of physics which deals with the study of electric charges kept at rest. Charges are of two types; positive charge and negative charge.
The most basic property of charges is that similar charges tend to repel each other while opposite charges tend to attract each other.
This is due to the electric field a charge at rest develops around it due to which any other charge in its field experiences a force on it which may be attractive or repulsive in nature.
Electrostatics was invented by a French physicist called Charles Augustin de Coulomb. Coulomb is also famously known for the coulomb’s law. According to the Coulomb’s law, the force acting between two static charges is directly proportional to the product of the magnitude of their charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. Therefore,
$F\propto \dfrac{{{q}_{1}}{{q}_{2}}}{{{r}^{2}}}$
Here, $F$ is the electrostatic force
${{q}_{1}}$ is the magnitude of one charge
${{q}_{2}}$ is the magnitude of the other charge
$r$ is the distance between the charges
Therefore, Charles Coulomb was the inventor of the branch of Electrostatics.

Note: Electric field can be defined as the work done to bring a unit charge from infinity to a point in the field. The potential energy due to attractive force is negative while the potential energy due to repulsive force is positive. The positive charge tends to move in the direction of the electric field while the negative charge flows opposite to the direction of the electric field.