We present a fast method for evaluating expressions of the form $$ u_j = sum_{i = 1,i ot = j}^n frac{alpha_i}{x_i - x_j}, quad text{for} quad j = 1,ldots,n, $$ where $alpha_i$ are real numbers, and $x_i$ are points in a compact interval of $mathbb{R}$. This expression can be viewed as representing the electrostatic potential generated by charges on a line in $mathbb{R}^3$. While fast algorithms for computing the electrostatic potential of general distributions of charges in $mathbb{R}^3$ exist, in a number of situations in computational physics it is useful to have a simple and extremely fast method for evaluating the potential of charges on a line; we present such a method in this paper, and report numerical results for several examples.
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