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[Fwd: Re: capacitors don't store charge]
I agree that many of the commonly used models to describe many things
- not only those of electrical nature - need to go. Personnally, I
think of items like capacitors as "gradient keepers". Using the
hydraulic analogy (thanks, Bill) i see it as a dam or levy - water may
build up behind the obstruction until it spills over (dielectric
breakdown?) and continues to flow, albeit with a stored potential. A
leakage resistance could be viewed as a bypass channel at the base of
the dam. A spillway/floodgate?
Another similarity might be seen in the item known as a flow damper.
Used to smooth out the pulses from pumps such that the flow to the
(presumably sensitive) process would be free of imposed higher
frequency ripple. Kinda like the big caps used to smooth out voltage
ripple in power supply? A further point for the analogy is that such a
damper usually uses a gas volume as the buffer. Similar to the use of
a dielectric...a different substance is used to get the properties not
normally available to the conducter.
But, I babble on...
Tony