Question

What is an electrostatic force?

Answer 1

Electrostatic forces are attractive or repulsive forces between particles that are caused by their electric charges. This force is also called the Coulomb force or Coulomb interaction.

Answer 2

Electrostatics is a branch of physics that studies electric charges at rest.

Since classical physics, it has been known that some materials such as amber attract lightweight particles after rubbing. The Greek word for amber, ήλεκτρον, or electron, was the source of the word 'electricity'. Electrostatic phenomena arise from the forces that electric charges exert on each other. Such forces are described by Coulomb's law. Even though electrostatically induced forces seem to be rather weak, some electrostatic forces such as the one between an electron and a proton, that together make up a hydrogen atom, is about 36 orders of magnitude stronger than the gravitational force acting between them.