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Does a capacitor charges smooth, or in stairs?

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RoGeorge:
Does a capacitor (dis)charges as a smooth exponential, or in stair steps?   ;D

greenpossum:
It takes the elevator.  :-DD

Actually it sometimes even goes backwards when you are not measuring it, but as soon as you do, it goes back to normal. Schrodinger discovered these capacitors.  :popcorn:

RoGeorge:

--- Quote from: greenpossum on June 06, 2020, 10:47:54 am ---It takes the elevator.  :-DD

--- End quote ---

Nope, it always takes the stairs.   ;D

Seriously, it's always in small stair steps, overall resembling the well known (and seen on the casual oscilloscope) exponential shape (and it is stair steps not because of charge quantization, or other quantum effect, it's because of something else entirely).  Any guess?

Nominal Animal:
Charge is carried in units of electron charge, yes.  But, in a capacitor, their location with respect to the dielectric affects the electrical potential in the capacitor, and above Planck scale, location is continuous; so the potential across a capacitor even with just a single charge carrier pair is continuous.

RoGeorge:
I just said, the stair steps I'm talking are not about quantum physics.

As a hint, the small stair-steps has much to do with the geometry of the capacitor.   :o

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