Wednesday, August 10, 2016

homework and exercises - The separation between the two plates of a capacitor is increased


I had the following question on a quiz recently:



A capacitor consisting of two parallel plates, separated by a distance $d$, is connected to a battery of EMF ε. What happens if the separation is doubled while the battery remains connected?



The correct answer was "The electric charge on the plates is halved." However, we were previously given a question in which a circuit consists of a capacitor of 6 μF and a resistor of 300,000 Ω connected to a battery, and the separation between the plates of the capacitor is quadrupled. However, in this circumstance, the charge on the capacitor immediately after the plates are separated remains the same, and the potential difference across the capacitor increases.


I am confused as to why these questions have different answers to them, despite having an extremely similar setup. My best guess is that the circuit in the second question also has a resistor, but I am not sure, and help would be greatly appreciated.




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