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Homework Statement
6. Based on what you can tell so far, if you have an N number of capacitors (say at a nuclear fission site) and you need massive power storage, you would place the N number of capacitors in
a. Series
b. Parallel
c. Combination of series and parallel
d. Both choices a and b would work.
Homework Equations
U=(cV^2)/2, C eq for parallel = Sum of Cs, C eq for series = (C1*C2)/C1+C2, Q=CV(battery), ?
The Attempt at a Solution
Common sense originally pushed me towards parallel since the equivalent C for them would obviously be higher. But then I researched it and came across an electronic website that said they were the same and that the voltage would differ. Their equation didn't make a lot of sense to me but the underlying theme that energy is the same no matter how you arrange the capacitors makes sense.
I used (the same) arbitrary capacitor ratings to find an equivalent C and then plugged that into the U=(cV^2)/2 formula with an arbitrary voltage and U was higher for the parallel wired caps but then I went back to the aforementioned website that tried to explain that voltage would differ, not total storage so this did nothing to resolve my confusion.
Let me also ask this. If both circuits were connected to the same power supply, would they both store equal amounts of power with one just running at a different voltage than the other one?
The link for the referenced site is here. Any help would be greatly appreciated, I can't seem to wrap my mind around this. Thanks!
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