Two capacitor paradox

Re:Two capacitor paradox by saagarjha on Monday May 25, 2020 @02:43PM (#23303633)

In normal situations, you would not lose half the energy, or hydropower would be totally bunk (actually maybe not, considering the efficiency of burning fossil fuels…) But in this degenerate case, you cannot ignore the losses.

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Re:Two capacitor paradox by lutorm on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:48AM (#23307516)

In a hydro power plant, the water turbine constitutes the "friction" so, if there were no other losses, the half of the energy "lost" from the system is precisely what your generator gave you.

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Re:Two capacitor paradox by logicallee on Monday May 25, 2020 @02:57PM (#23303771)

Are you sure? I was going to add that the intuition comes from demonstrations we might have seen, where in a series of tubes, regardless of shape, water will be at one level. As in this picture:

https://www.physics.purdue.edu/demos/display_page.php?item=2...

So is it not accurate to say that water does this by oscillating and throwing away energy as parasitic losses, until it equalizes?

Are you saying in general does a system of connected tubes NOT throw off lots of energy as it gets into the equalized state shown?

If it does, I think this fact should also be mentioned when teaching the "water seeks its own level" demonstrated above. (Called Pascal's vases.)

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Re:Two capacitor paradox by saagarjha on Monday May 25, 2020 @04:35PM (#23304687)

Here's a video showing water oscillating: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVEbh_COcRY

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Re:Two capacitor paradox by logicallee on Tuesday May 26, 2020 @12:00AM (#23307288)

Cool! Thanks :)

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