What the Capacitor Can See

You'll learnwhat an RC circuit does at its first instant and its last, and which resistance sets its clock.

A battery fills a capacitor through one resistor while another sits across it. The filling starts fast, flattens, and never quite finishes - and the clock it runs on is set by a resistance that is not printed anywhere on the diagram. Twelve short steps; press Next for each one.

12 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · WIRE THEN OPEN · WHICH R SETS THE CLOCK · v2

empty acts like a wire, full like a gap · the clock uses the R it sees

Before you start

What you're looking at

A battery, a switch, a capacitor that fills like a bucket, and two resistors - one in the charging path, one directly across the plates.

The question

How fast does it fill, and which resistor sets the pace?

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