Question

A student places two charged objects near each other. the objects repel each other. the student concluded that the objects must both be negative. do you agree? explain.

Answer 1

No because, for an object to repel another object, the two must either be negative, or positive. It doesn't necessarily have to be negative, both of them could be positive as well. As long as both the charges are the same, the objects will repel from each other since like charges repel.

Answer 2

The objects must have similar charges to repel each other. If both the objects are either positively or negatively charged then they will repel each other. However, a positively charged object will attract a negatively charged object. This is based on Coulomb’s law of attraction wherein similar charges repel each other and opposite charges attract each other.