Coulomb’s Law and intermolecular forces have a very strong relationship One cannot be relevant without the other They work hand and hand to give us an outcome to an equation Charles Augustin de Coulomb was a physicist and military engineer from France Once he graduated college in the 1700s he joined the military at the lieutenant position After twenty five plus years he returned to France and was employed at a western city called La Rochelle As he was working here He discovered a inverse relationship of the force between electric charges and the square of its distance then the same relationship between magnetic poles These two relationships were later named after him Coulomb's Law describes the relationship between electrically charged objects The formula helps you define the relationship between the two objects where F is the electrostatic force k represents a constant value sometimes called Coulomb's constant q1 represents the charge of the first object q2 represents the charge of the second object and r represents the distance between the two charges The unit used to measure charges in this equation is coulomb Ionization energy is as the name would imply the energy needed to make an atom into an ion by removing an electron Coulomb s Law shows why ionization energy decreases as you go down a group As you go down a group valence electrons are higher in energy level which are farther from the nucleus so force of attraction is less therefore less energy is needed to remove electrons
