Coulomb's law
E157380
Coulomb's law is a fundamental principle of electrostatics that quantifies the electric force between two point charges as being proportional to the product of their charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
All labels observed (4)
| Label | Occurrences |
|---|---|
| Coulomb law | 1 |
| Coulomb potential | 1 |
| Coulomb's law canonical | 1 |
| Coulomb’s law | 1 |
How this entity was disambiguated
This entity first appeared as the object of triple T1382259 — resolving that mention is where its identity was fixed. The disambiguator weighed these candidate entities and picked the highlighted one (or “None”, minting a new entity). This is how homonymy is resolved: the same surface form can point to different entities.
NED1
Entity disambiguation (via context triple)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Coulomb's law Context triple: [Gauss's law, relatedConcept, Coulomb's law]
-
A.
Gauss’s law
Gauss’s law is a fundamental principle of electromagnetism that relates the electric flux through a closed surface to the electric charge enclosed within that surface.
-
B.
Lorentz force
The Lorentz force is the fundamental force experienced by a charged particle moving in electric and magnetic fields, forming the basis of classical electromagnetism.
-
C.
Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations are the fundamental set of four equations in classical electromagnetism that describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated and interact with charges and currents.
-
D.
law of universal gravitation
The law of universal gravitation is Newton’s fundamental physical law stating that every pair of masses in the universe attracts each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
-
E.
Ampère–Maxwell law
The Ampère–Maxwell law is one of Maxwell’s equations that relates magnetic fields to electric currents and changing electric fields, thereby introducing the concept of displacement current and enabling the prediction of electromagnetic waves.
- F. None of above. chosen
- G. Unsure - the case is ambiguous/there is not enough information to decide.
NED2
Entity disambiguation (via description)
gpt-5-mini-2025-08-07
Target entity: Coulomb's law Target entity description: Coulomb's law is a fundamental principle of electrostatics that quantifies the electric force between two point charges as being proportional to the product of their charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
-
A.
Gauss’s law
Gauss’s law is a fundamental principle of electromagnetism that relates the electric flux through a closed surface to the electric charge enclosed within that surface.
-
B.
Lorentz force
The Lorentz force is the fundamental force experienced by a charged particle moving in electric and magnetic fields, forming the basis of classical electromagnetism.
-
C.
Maxwell's equations
Maxwell's equations are the fundamental set of four equations in classical electromagnetism that describe how electric and magnetic fields are generated and interact with charges and currents.
-
D.
law of universal gravitation
The law of universal gravitation is Newton’s fundamental physical law stating that every pair of masses in the universe attracts each other with a force proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
-
E.
Ampère–Maxwell law
The Ampère–Maxwell law is one of Maxwell’s equations that relates magnetic fields to electric currents and changing electric fields, thereby introducing the concept of displacement current and enabling the prediction of electromagnetic waves.
- F. None of above. chosen
Statements (49)
| Predicate | Object |
|---|---|
| instanceOf |
law of electrostatics
ⓘ
physical law ⓘ |
| appliesTo |
point charges
ⓘ
stationary charges ⓘ |
| assumes |
charges are in vacuum or air (approximation)
ⓘ
charges are point-like ⓘ charges are stationary ⓘ |
| constantApproximateValue | k ≈ 8.9875517923 × 10^9 N·m^2/C^2 ⓘ |
| constantSymbol |
k
ⓘ
ϵ0 ⓘ |
| dependsOn |
inverse square of separation distance
ⓘ
product of the two charges ⓘ |
| describes | electrostatic force between point charges ⓘ |
| discoveredBy | Charles-Augustin de Coulomb ⓘ |
| domain | classical electromagnetism ⓘ |
| experimentalBasis | torsion balance experiments ⓘ |
| field |
electromagnetism
ⓘ
electrostatics ⓘ |
| forceType |
central force
ⓘ
inverse-square force ⓘ |
| hasFormula |
F = (1 / 4πϵ0) q1 q2 / r^2
ⓘ
F = k q1 q2 / r^2 ⓘ |
| historicalPeriod | 18th century ⓘ |
| involvesQuantity |
Coulomb constant
ⓘ
distance between charges ⓘ electric charge ⓘ electric force ⓘ vacuum permittivity ⓘ |
| isSpecialCaseOf |
Maxwell's equations
ⓘ
surface form:
Maxwell's equations in electrostatic limit
|
| mathematicalForm | scalar and vector forms ⓘ |
| namedAfter | Charles-Augustin de Coulomb ⓘ |
| predicts |
attractive force for opposite charges
ⓘ
repulsive force for like charges ⓘ |
| relatedConcept |
Coulomb's law
self-linksurface differs
ⓘ
surface form:
Coulomb potential
Gauss’s law ⓘ
surface form:
Gauss's law
electric field ⓘ inverse-square law ⓘ |
| relates | magnitude of electric force to charges and distance ⓘ |
| states |
electrostatic force is inversely proportional to the square of the distance between charges
ⓘ
electrostatic force is proportional to the product of the charges ⓘ |
| unitAssociated | coulomb ⓘ |
| usedIn |
Gauss's law derivation for point charges
ⓘ
electrical engineering analysis ⓘ introductory physics education ⓘ |
| usedToDerive |
electric field of a point charge
ⓘ
principle of superposition for electrostatic forces ⓘ |
| validWhen | medium is linear, homogeneous, and isotropic ⓘ |
| vectorForm | F⃗ = (1 / 4πϵ0) (q1 q2 / r^2) r̂ ⓘ |
| yearProposed | 1785 ⓘ |
How these facts were elicited
The pipeline generated the facts above by prompting gpt-5.1 with this entity's name + description and the instruction below.
Instruction
You are a knowledge base construction expert. Given a subject entity and a description of it, return factual statements that you know for the subject as a JSON list of dictionaries(triples), where keys must be "subject", "predicate" and "object". The number of facts may be very high, between 25 to 50 or more, for very popular subjects. For less popular subjects, the number of facts can be very low, like 5 or 10. # Requirements - If you don't know the subject at all, return an empty list. - If the subject is not a named entity, return an empty list. - Include at least one triple where predicate is "instanceOf". - Do not get too wordy. - Separate several objects into multiple triples with one object.
Input
Subject: Coulomb's law Description of subject: Coulomb's law is a fundamental principle of electrostatics that quantifies the electric force between two point charges as being proportional to the product of their charges and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.
Referenced by (4)
Full triples — surface form annotated when it differs from this entity's canonical label.
subject surface form:
Gauss's law
this entity surface form:
Coulomb law
this entity surface form:
Coulomb potential
this entity surface form:
Coulomb’s law