Describe the electric potential energy of a system.

• The electric potential energy of a system of two point charges equals the amount of work required for an external force to bring the point charges to their current positions from infinitely far away.
• The general form for the electric potential energy of two charged objects is given by the equation:
• The total electric potential energy of a system can be determined by finding the sum of the electric potential energies of the individual interactions between each pair of charged objects in the system.

As the methods to calculate the electric potential energy due to extended charge distributions exceed the scope of the course, AP Physics 2 only requires that students calculate the electric potential energy of configurations of four or fewer point charges.

More videos