Capacitance is defined as the amount of charge stored in a capacitor per volt across the capacitor. The value of the capacitance is a measure of how rapidly a capacitor stores electric potential energy as the capacitor is getting charged up.

In this lesson, we'll prove that the capacitance of a parallel-plate capacitor does not depend on the charge or voltage of the capacitor but, rather, on only the size and geometry of the capacitor.

In this lesson, we'll determine the electric field generated by a charged plate. We'll show that a charged plate generates a constant electric field. Then, we'll find the electric field produced by two, parallel, charged plates (a parallel-plate capacitor). We'll show that the electric field in between the plates has a constant magnitude \(\frac{σ}{ε_0}\). We'll also show that the direction of the electric field is a constant pointing from the positively charged plate to the negatively charged plate in a direction that is perpendicular to both plates. Lastly, we'll also prove that the electric field "outside" of the capacitor is zero everywhere.

In this lesson, we'll determine the electric potential difference (also called voltage) across any arbitrary capacitor.