Question

What happens when a charged capacitor is connected to an uncharged capacitor?

Answer 1

Hint: Here we can assume that the capacitance of both the capacitors is constant. Then the charge voltage and capacitance are related by a relation from which we can understand that as the charge gets increased the potential also increases, where the electric current moves from a place of high potential to low potential.

Complete step by step answer:
When a charged capacitor is connected to an uncharged capacitor we can observe that there is a flow of electrons from the charged capacitor to the uncharged until it comes to a steady-state and after this, there is no flow of charges and an equilibrium condition is achieved.
This flow of charges takes place according to Coulomb’s law that the total charge inside the capacitor is the product of the capacitance and the voltage stored in the capacitor which is given by $Q = CV$ coulombs, but the capacitance of the capacitor is constant and is given in microFarads. Hence only the voltage of the capacitor changes so that the total charge of the capacitor changes until a steady state is obtained after which there is no more flow of charges. During the complete process, the whole charge of both the capacitors is conserved as one loss is gained by the other. When there is no connection between the charges, the total charge in both the capacitors is equal to the sum of charges after connection where the individual charges are changed and the total charges remain conserved.

Note:
A charged capacitor stores certain energy in the electrical field between its plates. As the capacitor gets charged, the electrical field builds up. When a charged capacitor is disconnected from a battery, its energy will remain in the field in the space between its plates. The common outline of two capacitor systems is parallel plate capacitors when they are parallel to each other. The value of capacitance of a capacitor configuration with plates at a distance d and if the medium between them is air is given by $C = \dfrac{{{ \in _0}A}}{d}$.