Question

Electric field inside a hollow conducting sphere ______

(a) Increases with distance from the center of the sphere

(b) Decreases with distance from the center of the sphere

(c) Is zero

(d) May increase or decrease with distance from the center

This question was posed to me in a national level competition.

My query is from Electric Field topic in chapter Charges and Fields of Physics – Class 12

Answer 1

The correct choice is (c) Is zero

To elaborate: According to Gauss’s law, if there is no charge inside a closed surface, the field inside the closed surface will always be zero. We know the charge is distributed on the outer surface of a conducting hollow sphere because the charges want to maintain maximum distance among them due to repulsion. So there is no charge inside the sphere and hence no electric field.