A capacitor is charged to a voltage V and then disconnected from the battery. What happens to the charge on the capacitor if the distance between the plates is increased?
Practice Questions
1 question
Q1
A capacitor is charged to a voltage V and then disconnected from the battery. What happens to the charge on the capacitor if the distance between the plates is increased?
Charge increases
Charge decreases
Charge remains the same
Charge becomes zero
When a capacitor is disconnected from the battery, the charge remains constant. Increasing the distance decreases capacitance but does not change the charge.
Questions & Step-by-step Solutions
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Q
Q: A capacitor is charged to a voltage V and then disconnected from the battery. What happens to the charge on the capacitor if the distance between the plates is increased?
Solution: When a capacitor is disconnected from the battery, the charge remains constant. Increasing the distance decreases capacitance but does not change the charge.
Steps: 8
Step 1: Understand that a capacitor stores electrical charge.
Step 2: When a capacitor is connected to a battery, it gets charged to a certain voltage V.
Step 3: After charging, if the capacitor is disconnected from the battery, it keeps the charge it has.
Step 4: Know that the charge on the capacitor does not change when it is disconnected from the battery.
Step 5: Increasing the distance between the plates of the capacitor affects its capacitance.
Step 6: Capacitance is a measure of how much charge a capacitor can store per unit voltage.
Step 7: When the distance between the plates increases, the capacitance decreases.
Step 8: Even though capacitance decreases, the charge on the capacitor remains the same because it is isolated.
