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Re: Capacitor charge, were is it?



On 10/30/96 00:26:08 you wrote:
>
>>From jim.fosse-at-bdt-dot-comTue Oct 29 22:58:00 1996
>Date: Wed, 30 Oct 1996 04:45:57 GMT
>Subject: Re: Capacitor charge, were is it?
>
>>>[snip to save Chip's eyes]
>>The vacuum diode conducts in one direction only because the plate is 
charged 
>>positively and the electrons are charged negatively. 
>>
>[another half page snip]
>
>No,
>	A thermionic diode rectifies because the work function of the
>cathode is (much) lower than the work function of the anode.  If you
>replace both of these different objects with like objects (same work
>function), the device will no longer have a preferred conduction
>direction.

Is this to say that there would be conduction in the vacuum?

>	The vacuum is not the conductor of current. The flow of
>electrons through the vacuum is.

I think this is a matter of semantics.  The flow of electrons is defined as 
a current, not a conductor.  The conductor is the medium through which the 
electrons flow.  Hence, the vacuum is a conductor.

>> If the vacuum were not 
>>a conductor, no electrons would flow in either direction.  Make sense?
>
>The vacuum does not impede the flow of electrons but, it is not the
>conductor either. Until the electrons are ripped out of a material, no
>current flows.

If the vacuum does not impede the flow of electrons, it sounds like a pretty 
good conductor to me.

Phil Gantt


Phil Gantt (pgantt-at-ix-dot-netcom-dot-com)
http://www-dot-netcom-dot-com/~pgantt/intro.html