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Re: dissectible capacitor



On Wed, 31 May 2000, Leigh Palmer wrote:

Assuming we have an ideal parallel-plate capacitor, the potential
difference goes through the roof as you separate the plates, but the
electric field does not. So I'm not sure a corona discharge must
occur.

Does the dissectable capacitor effect occur in the parallel plate
capacitor? Bill's mechanism sounds very plausible to me, and I've
only performed the demo with a cylindrical capacitor.

Does the value of e-field at the edges (and corners?) of a parallel plate
capacitor change as the plates are separated in the perpendicular
direction?

The field decreases if the plates are held parallel as they are
separated. I had difficulty maintaining that parallelism in my first
crude attempts, but I know how to do that now.

The field between the plates would fall as the fringing field
becomes significant, while the field on the opposite sides of the plates
would rise. If the plates have finite thickness, then the edge of each
plate has two sharp corners, and I wouldn't be suprised if the field at
the "inside" corner fell with plate-separation, while the other one
increased.

My cookie tins have smooth, rolled edges. The fringing field in the
glassward direction is the important one, and it must decrease.

Leigh