Capacitors 1

Capacitors are used to store charge and therefore store potential in the electric field between the equal in magnitude but opposite in charged conducting plates. The given equation we are searching for capacitance is C=Q/V

We used foil as our conducting plates and printer paper as our dielectric ( the medium through which our electrostatic field will be transmitted through). We used a voltmeter to calculate the potential difference between the plates.

During this experiment we added paper between the plates to observe how added distance would effect the capacitance given the same dielectric, charge, and area.

We found that the capacitance of a rectangular plate was proportional to area of the plates, the distance between them, and the permittivity of free space or in our scenario the permittivity of the dielectric (printer paper).

Here is our calculations that we plugged into excel to generate a function displaying the inverse relationship to distance that capacitance has.

 Calculating equivalent capacitance of various capacitors in series and in parallel in a circuit analysis is important to understanding how a certain circuit values can be calculated. Capacitors in series add inversely while ones in parallel add directly.