| Biot-Savart law for the magnetic field | Coulomb’s law for the electrostatic field |
| Long range force, since both depend inversely on the square of distance from the source to the point of interest. | Long range force, since both depend inversely on the square of distance from the source to the point of interest. |
| The principle of superposition applies to magnetic fields. | The principle of superposition applies to electric fields. |
| The magnetic field is produced by a vector source I vector dl. | The electrostatic field is produced by a scalar source, namely, the electric charge. |
| The magnetic field is produced by a vector source I vector dl. | The electrostatic field is along the displacement vector joining the source and the field point. |
| There is an angle dependence in the Biot-Savart law. The magnetic field at any point in the direction of dl (the dashed line) is zero. | There is no angle dependence in the Coulombs law. |
