10.2: Electric and Gravitational Forces

Compare the electric forces and gravitational forces that result from interactions between charged objects with mass.

Electrostatic forces can be attractive or repulsive while gravitational forces are only attractive.

For any two objects that have mass and electric charge, the magnitude of the gravitational force is much smaller than the magnitude of the electrostatic force.

Gravitational forces dominate at larger scales even though they are weaker than electrostatic forces because systems at large scales tend to be electrically neutral.