
Chapter 13
Capacitors in Series and Parallel
In Chapter 12, we computed the capacitances associated with certain configurations of
paired conductors. This was done by distributing charges ±Q on the conductors, determin-
ing the electric field throughout the nearby region(s), computing the potential difference
between the pair of conductors, and finally taking the ratio of the charge distributed to the
potential difference.
ASIDE: That this sounds complicated is no surprise, as it is complicated.
We’ve also verified in our examples that capacitance, C = Q/V , depends neither on Q nor
on V , but rather on the physical geometry of the conductors. In this chapter, ...