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Re: Capacitor Charged, Right term



At 09:41 2/13/98 -0700, you wrote:
I read with interest that to say a capacitor is charged is wrong. I
confess to have made that error many times, and am soon to teach the
topic again. What I missed in the long statement was the correct
phrasing to describe what I have long called a charged capacitor.
Energized?

Ken Fox

It seems to me you have two choices:

-you could go with the wording adopted by most electrical engineers,
as illustrated by Feynman Vol II 6-10 Condensers: Parallel Plates.

"In many applications in electronic circuits, it is useful to have
something which can absorb or deliver large quantities of charge without
changing its potential much. A condenser (or capacitor) does just that."
Feynman

or

"If a constant voltage V is applied between two conductors
insulated from each other...the measure for the charge stored is the
capacitance C..."
H.M. Schlicke in Encyclopedia of Physics,
R.M. Besancon ed. Van Nostrand Reinhold 1974


-or you could go with the suggestions provided by the people on this list.

You choose! :-)


brian whatcott <inet@intellisys.net>
Altus OK