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Question 3.2: In one sentence, justify Earnshaw’s Theorem: A charged parti...

In one sentence, justify Earnshaw’s Theorem: A charged particle cannot be held in a stable equilibrium by electrostatic forces alone. As an example, consider the cubical arrangement of fixed charges in Fig. 3.4. It looks, off hand, as though a positive charge at the center would be suspended in midair, since it is repelled away from each corner. Where is the leak in this “electrostatic bottle”? [To harness nuclear fusion as a practical energy source it is necessary to heat a plasma (soup of charged particles) to fantastic temperatures—so hot that contact would vaporize any ordinary pot. Earnshaw’s theorem says that electrostatic containment is also out of the question. Fortunately, it is possible to confine a hot plasma magnetically.]

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A stable equilibrium is a point of local minimum in the potential energy. Here the potential energy is qV . But we know that Laplace’s equation allows no local minima for V . What looks like a minimum, in the figure, must in fact be a saddle point, and the box “leaks” through the center of each face

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\text { (a) The average field due to a poin...