Energy vanishing into air? (fwd)

[Steven Roys <sroys@xxxxxxxx>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 17 Jan 2004 11:54:14 -0500
From: Alfred Erpel <alfred@xxxxxxxxx>
To: High Voltage list <hvlist@xxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: Energy vanishing into air?



Howdy All,

    Imagine an air variable capacitor with plates fully engaged and the
capacitor fully charged.

    Let's use the example of .001µF charged to 10,000 volts. Stored energy =
joules = .5CV^2 = .05 watt=seconds.

    What happens to the energy of the fully charged capacitor when the
plates are rotated to the 0µF capacitance position?

Regards,

Al Erpel

[Potential energy.  It would take that much energy to rotate the cap
plates to the 0uF position (barring friction losses), and rotating them
back would convert the energy back from potential to the energy stored in
the electrical field.  SRR]