The two capacitor paradox debate

[onepower]

Lunkster

I made the corrections in a way that hopefully makes sense.

Thanks for the graphics and it makes more sense when we can see what were talking about.

Another problem with the two capacitor paradox relates to your nice graphics. Here we see two capacitors and when the switch is closed the finite number of electrons present in capacitor 1 redistribute themselves over twice the surface area of cap 1 and 2. In fact all of our electrical systems use a similar principal pumping electrons or raising the electron density then allowing it to redistribute to a lower density.

I like the two capacitor paradox because it is a simplified more transparent version of how our electrical systems actually work without all the complexity. With the two capacitor system we have a finite and know amount of energy in the system based solely on the initial electron density and the final electron density.

This was basically the point I wanted to make when starting this thread. The first cause of the missing energy is the fact that the electron density was reduced to one half when it redistributed over twice the surface area. Any energy radiated as heat or EM waves is an after effect of the motion of the electrons as they redistributed not the cause of the missing energy. You see in all the literature I read they completely ignored the change in electron density and simply said heat or EM waves were generated. They completely ignored the first cause of why the electrons were moving in the first place and what effect this had on the system. This is where our calculations generally fail us because they leave out many of the most important details creating confusion.

So in fact, the only paradox present is that many are using simple calculations and assumptions to replace a real understanding of what is actually happening and why.

Regards