🚀 go-pugleaf

  JAMES MCLEAN WROTE:
> I trust that you see the value in the electrostatic theory, since your
> own more complete theory could not have been formulated without the
> underpinning concept of a 'perfect capacitor'. So the 'myth' is not in
> the electrostatic theory. The 'myth' is that real world capacitors always
> live up to 'ideal' standards.

Hello James:
                While thinking about the rest of your long and interesting
                message let me comment on the above.

Perfect capacitors, perfect perfect love and marriage, perfect society ...
In mathematics you can formulate any theory you want and it will be correct
if the logic of derivation is error-free. But science is different.

Yes, the mathematical theory of electrostatics is correct. Furthermore, all
scientific applications of that theory with which I am familiar are also
correct, except the one which I call "a myth about capacitors in series".
For example, it can used to show that two capacitors in parallel behave as
one C=C1+C2. But capacitors in series NEVER "live up to 'ideal' standards".

      NO MATTER HOW LARGE R1 AND R2 ARE THEY ARE ALWAYS ESSENTIAL

In general two capacitors connected in series with a battery (long enough
for the equilibrium to be established) are not equivalent to one capacitor
which makes 1/C=1/C1+1/C2. Experiments I performed show that predictions of
the "constant current theory" are confirmed while predictions of the "equal
charges" theory are not. Both are idealizations but, in my opinion, one is
proper and another is not. INDEPENDENTLY DONE experiments are needed to
verify that claim. Please help to solve the dilemma.

            Ludwik Kowalski            Kowalski@apollo.montclair.edu

P.S. Predictions of the thin lens formula (for paraxial rays) become more
and more relaible as the lens becomes thinner. Predictions of ranges of
projectiles, calculated with textbook formulas, become more and more correct
when air pressure is progressively reduced. But the 1/C formula does not
become "more correct" when R1 and R2 are increased by a very large factor.
Only the ratio R1/R2 is important, not the individual leakage resistances.
A physics theory which ignores the ratio can not be correct. The mathematical
derivation of the 1/C formula is fine; the underlying assumption of equal
charges is not acceptable. I know I am repeating myself, bye bye.