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Untitled Document
INTRODUCTION:
Gauss's law was suggested by Karl Frederich Gauss(1777-1855) who was German
scientist and mathematician.Gauss's law is basically the relation between the charge
distribution producing the electrostatic field to the behavior of electrostatic field in space.
Gauss's law is based on the fact that flux through any closed surface is a measure of total
amount of charge inside that surface and any charge outside that surface would not
contribute anything to the total flux.
Before we look further to study Gauss's law in detail let's study electric field due to
continuous charge distributions.
The electric flux from any closed surface is only due to the sources (positive charges) and
sinks (negative charges) of the electric fields enclosed by the surface. Any charges outside
the surface do not contribute to the electric flux. Also, only electric charges can act as
sources or sinks of electric fields. Changing magnetic fields, for example, cannot act as
sources or sinks of electric fields.