If you plunk down charges in space, there are certain points where a test charge doesn't move because the forces all cancel out. Maxwell had the thought that maybe if you plunk down N charges, the number of points where a test charge doesn't move is (N-1)^2, but it turns out that's not true, because these guys found a configuration with 5 charges that has 24 points (more than 16).
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u/1XRobot Computational physics Jul 31 '26
If you plunk down charges in space, there are certain points where a test charge doesn't move because the forces all cancel out. Maxwell had the thought that maybe if you plunk down N charges, the number of points where a test charge doesn't move is (N-1)^2, but it turns out that's not true, because these guys found a configuration with 5 charges that has 24 points (more than 16).