Why is Coulomb’s law one among the basic laws of electricity?

Many scientists have, in the past, tried to study the features of charged particles, and the force they exert on other charged particles. But the reason behind this remained a mystery until the French physicist Charles Augustin de Coulomb put forward his theory on the same.

Coulomb’s law, as it is known all over the world describes the electrostatic interaction between electrically charged particles. This law was first published by Coulomb in 1783.

Let’s see what it says. Suppose there are two charged particles. With these is created an electric force. If the charges are stronger, the forces they create will be stronger too. This is the basic idea behind the law. Coulomb also found out that either attraction or repulsion acts along the line between the two charges.

A decade earlier, British scientist Henry Cavendish also made similar observations, but he did not publish them. So, most of the credit went to Coulomb alone.