You find one black, one white, and one silver orb. The white orb has a mass of 0

Question

You find one black, one white, and one silver orb. The white orb has a mass of 0.17kg and a -3C charge. The other orbs have 0.16kg of mass each. The black orb is 240m from the white orb and has 0.18C of charge. The silver is 175m from the white orb and has 0.12C of charge. You remove the white orb from its location and shield it in a container on your ship. This, surprisingly, does not change the position of the black or silver orbs which appear to be anchored in place somehow. The location the white orb used to occupy will henceforth be referred to as 'the spot'. Units are in brackets after each question.

What will the acceleration of the white orb be if it is placed at the spot and released?

Explanation / Answer

given
Black orb, mass m = 0.16 kg, charge C1 = 0.18 C
white orb, mass M = 0.17 kg, charge C2 = -3 C
silver orb, mass m = 0.16 kg, charge C3 = 0.12 C

distance of white orb from black orb = d1 = 240 m
distance of white orb from silver orb = d2 = 175 m

so force between thwo point charges, q1, q2 seperated bydistance d is given by F = kq1*q2/d^2 [ here k = 8.98*10^9]
so, force on white orbs due to two orbs = F = k*3[0.18/240^2 + 0.12/175^2] = 189748.3163 N
but from newtons second law, F = Ma
so, a = F/M = F/0.17 = 1.1161*10^6 m/s/s

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