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David Rutherford wrote:
Bob LaMontagne wrote:
David Rutherford wrote:
Thus, for a capacitor charged through a resistance, the energy
dissipated by the resistor during charging should be included, along
with the energy of the charges stored on the capacitor, in the energy
of (work done on) the charges. Since the energy dissipated by the
resistor during charging is 1/2 CV^2 and the energy stored on the
capacitor is 1/2 CV^2, I claim that the total energy of the charges,
in the absence of dissipation would have been CV^2. This would seem to
indicate that the energy of a distribution of charges is twice the
conventional value.
You won't get CV^2 of work from the capacitor, alone. As I stated above,
the energy stored on the capacitor, in the presence of a resistance, is
only 1/2 CV^2. The other 1/2 CV^2 of energy is dissipated as heat in the
resistor during the charging of the capacitor.
Ok - so far so good - you agree that the energy stored in the capacitor is 1/2
CV^2.
Now, since the energy resides in the field, not in the charges, what
possible set of circumstances could have the energy stored in an identical
capacitor with the same charge and voltage to be anything except 1/2 CV^2 -
regardless of how it was charged - dissipatively or non-dissipatively?