It receives its name from its creator, the French mathematician, physicist and engineer Charles-Augustin de Coulomb (1736 - 1806). It describes in a mathematical way, through quantification, the relationship between force, load and distance. Thus, it details how like charges repel each other, while different charges attract. Coulomb's law indicates that the force exerted by two electrically charged bodies is reciprocally distributed to the square of the distances of both and clearly proportional to the result of their electric charges.
The Frenchman raised how is the reaction of a point charge in the presence of another and in that sense, what will be the magnitude of the electric force of attraction with which these charges interact.
He made his measurements using a torsion balance created by himself, obtaining as a result that "two point charges at rest are directly proportional to the product of the magnitude of both and inversely proportional to the square of the distance that separates them." In other words, Charles-Agustín wanted to express that the separation line between the two must be adequate to their load, because if the distance is not proportional to the load, the attraction will be weaker.
It is then defined that the force of attraction with which objects interact depends on their electrical charge and whether it is positive or negative. The sign of that charge develops in the envelope its nucleus, that is, every electrical phenomenon is composed of an atom, which has a nucleus formed by protons (positive charge) and neutrons (without charge), and surrounded by electrons (charge negative). The interaction of its own composition will then define the force of attraction when being in the presence of another target that has an electrical charge.
If both charges have the same sign, that is, if both are positive or both negative, the lines of force repel each other. On the contrary, if the two charges have opposite signs, the lines of force attract each other.
An example of the interaction between positive and negative charges can be seen with magnets that although they work with magnetism and not with electrical charges, they have the same principle, where two magnets with equal charges repel each other, while those with charges opposites come together.
Finally, it must be taken into consideration that this law can only be applied with objects that have an electric charge, that are of small dimension in relation to the distance that separates them and that are static (without movement), that is why the Law of Coulomb is also known as electrostatic.
