What happens to the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor if the distance be
Practice Questions
Q1
What happens to the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor if the distance between the plates is doubled?
It doubles
It halves
It remains the same
It quadruples
Questions & Step-by-Step Solutions
What happens to the capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor if the distance between the plates is doubled?
Step 1: Understand what capacitance is. Capacitance (C) is a measure of a capacitor's ability to store charge.
Step 2: Know the formula for capacitance of a parallel plate capacitor: C = ε₀A/d, where ε₀ is the permittivity of free space, A is the area of the plates, and d is the distance between the plates.
Step 3: Identify what happens when the distance (d) between the plates is doubled. If d becomes 2d, we can rewrite the formula as C = ε₀A/(2d).
Step 4: Compare the new capacitance to the original capacitance. The new capacitance is C = (1/2)(ε₀A/d), which shows that the capacitance is now half of the original value.
Step 5: Conclude that if the distance between the plates is doubled, the capacitance is halved.
