In physics, the electric dipole moment is a measure of the separation of positive and negative electrical charges in a system of charges, that is, a measure of the charge system's overall polarity.
In the simple case of two point charges, one with charge + q and one with charge − q, the electric dipole moment p is:
where d is the displacement vector pointing from the negative charge to the positive charge. Thus, the electric dipole moment vector p points from the negative charge to the positive charge. There is no inconsistency here, because the electric dipole moment has to do with orientation of the dipole, that is, the positions of the charges, and does not indicate the direction of the field originating in these charges.
An idealization of this two-charge system is the electrical point dipole consisting of two (infinite) charges only infinitesimally separated, but with a finite p = q d
