Final answer:
Tripling the charge on one of the rubber balls while keeping the other ball's charge and the distance constant results in tripling the electric force between them, in accordance with Coulomb's law, which states that force is proportional to the product of the charges.
Step-by-step explanation:
When Violet triples the charge on one of the rubber balls while keeping the other ball with the same charge and maintaining the distance between them at 10cm, the electric force between the two balls changes significantly according to Coulomb's law. Coulomb's law states that the electric force (F) between two point charges is directly proportional to the product of the charges (q1 and q2) and inversely proportional to the square of the distance (r) between them. The formula for Coulomb's law is F = k * (q1 * q2) / r^2, where k is Coulomb's constant.
Initially, if both balls have an equal charge q, the electric force is F_initial = k * (q * q) / (0.1 m)^2. After tripling the charge on one ball to 3q, the new force becomes F_final = k * (3q * q) / (0.1 m)^2, which simplifies to F_final = 3 * k * (q * q) / (0.1 m)^2. This shows that the electric force between the balls is now tripled, because while the distance remains the same, the quantity (3q * q) in the numerator of the Coulomb's law equation is three times greater than before.
Note that the direction of the force remains the same since both charges are positive and still repel each other, and the force's magnitude depends on the product of the charges, not on their individual values.