If a capacitor is charged to a voltage V and then connected in parallel with an uncharged capacitor, what will be the final voltage across both capacitors?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
If a capacitor is charged to a voltage V and then connected in parallel with an uncharged capacitor, what will be the final voltage across both capacitors?
V
V/2
2V
0
When connected in parallel, charge redistributes, and the final voltage across both capacitors will be V/2.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
1 item
Q
Q: If a capacitor is charged to a voltage V and then connected in parallel with an uncharged capacitor, what will be the final voltage across both capacitors?
Solution: When connected in parallel, charge redistributes, and the final voltage across both capacitors will be V/2.
Steps: 6
Step 1: Understand that a capacitor stores electrical charge and has a voltage across it.
Step 2: When the charged capacitor (with voltage V) is connected in parallel to an uncharged capacitor, they share the charge.
Step 3: The total charge from the charged capacitor is Q = C * V, where C is the capacitance of the charged capacitor.
Step 4: After connecting, the total capacitance of the two capacitors in parallel is C_total = C1 + C2, where C1 is the capacitance of the charged capacitor and C2 is the capacitance of the uncharged capacitor.
Step 5: The charge Q is now distributed across both capacitors, so the final voltage V_final can be calculated using the formula V_final = Q / C_total.
Step 6: Since the uncharged capacitor starts with zero charge, the final voltage across both capacitors will be V_final = (C * V) / (C + C) = V / 2.
