What is the relationship between the direction of an electric field and the direction of the force that the field would exert?

Answer 1

The direction of an electric field is the direction of the force that the field would exert on a proton.. ___ The relationship of the direction of an electric field and the direction of force that the field would exert are the same. Let's look. Consider the humble electron, the carrier of the negative electrostatic force. The electric field around the electron can be said to "stand out around the electron" equally and in all directions. We need to form a mental picture, so let's try to do that. Think of the electron as a little ball floating in space. Now picture it with long, thin "needles" sticking out of it in all directions. Each needle is a line of electric force, and its direction is "out" or "away" from the center of the ball that is the electron. Got that picture? The negative electric force about any elementary charged particle is just like the picture we have of the electron and its electric field. The force acts "out" like that. In the case of a positively charged particle, the same model applies, except that positive and negative forces attract while two negative or two positive forces repel each other, just as is set down in the law of electrostatics. Simple and easy. Note that electric and magnetic fields have a little different way of interacting, and this question doesn't cover that.