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What is Capacitance ?
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Capacitance is defined as the
ability to store an electric charge.
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It is symbolized by C
and measured in farads (F).
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The capacitance is equal to the
amount of charge (q)
that can be stored in a device or
capacitor divided by the voltage
(v)
applied across the device or capacitor
plates.
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We describe the charge +q
on one plate as identical to –q
on the other plate.
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When the capacitor is charged
to the voltage v,
which will be proportional to the
charge q,
we may write
where C
is the constant of proportionality. When
we connect a battery to the capacitor,
a current flows while the charges flow
from one plate to the other. The current
is represented by
By differentiating q
in the first equation, we obtain the following
current-voltage relationship for the mathematical
model of a capacitor
where C
is the constant of proportionality, representing
the capacitance.
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