My fellow physics teacher and I ran into a problem that has us perplexed
so I thought I'd run it by any of you who would be interested. My own
background in electricity is rather weak so I wasn't able to offer any
insight. Here's the problem stated as clearly as possible in the absence
of a diagram.
Two capacitors, A and B, are connected in parallel with a 45 V voltage
source. They are identical in construction except that A uses air as a
dielectric and B uses mica as a dielectric (K=6.0). If the electric
field for A is Ea and the electric field for B is Eb, then
(a) Ea = Eb
(b) Ea > Eb
(c) Eb > Ea
Your best answer and an explanation would be greatly appreciated. I
can't recall my colleague's reasoning exactly, but he disagrees with the
textbook's stock answer. (I can't imagine that the textbook could
contain an incorrect answer. Can you? Yeah, right...)
Later,
Tim
--
Timothy D. Wilson "A little song, a little dance,
Henry Sibley High School a little seltzer down your pants."
1897 Delaware Ave, W St. Paul, MN -Chuckles the Clown as
wilson@chemsun.chem.umn.edu eulogized by Ted Baxter