Comment Re:Read the Text (Score 1) 90
Well, shit. My phone are my reply which was quite long. So sorry my second go will be worse.
The EMF requirement is yours not mine. I don't see why an emf of 0 is a problem. Just a special case of complex impedances. But given your requirement capacitors fit.
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I've also never heard the term "series loop" before, and that only holds for a pair. What would you call it work 3, 4,5 or more capacitors connected how I specified as parallel?
When you say"no it only behaves that way", that's what I was talking about. A paralleled set of capacitors can be plugged in and behaves as one capacitor too am external circuit. Circulating currents or not ate part of that. A parallel R And C behave as a single complex Z externally, and certainly have circulating currents even in the ideal case.
As for describing it with a single capacitor, this is where pedantry falls because it goes all the way down.You can't describe a single real capacitor as an an ideal point lumped element. So one night as well say "good luck describing any real capacitor as a single capacitor". To preclude one and not the other you have to pick a very specific level of approximation to make your definition of parallel.
Though this of course is where the OPs answer comes from. A pair of ideal capacitors connected in parallel is a single capacitor. The ideal model doesn't work for only having the left half of a capacitor charged in isolation. Or alternatively implies infinite currents. But since it's not ideal...
Imagine you have R, C on series with a battery. R charges C too 10V and then C2 is connected in parallel with C. You are I presume on with that. Now let R get very large. At some point, say 10^12 ohms, it becomes indistinguishable from a cut wire. So at what point does it become not parallel?
On to the switches. I have a DC powered device with some input filtering, namely a couple of capacitors in a series loop with the pair of those forming a series loop with the rest of the circuit. Is that how I should describe it when off? I can assure you any EE would look at me like I had sprouted an extra head of I said that when the circuit was off, and parallel when on. It's the same circuit diagram after all!