Phys 223 University Physics III
Lab 3     RC Circuits

Table 1

Lab 3 Exercise

Table 1 contains measured values of the voltage across a capacitor and a resistor wired in parallel. The initial 10 volts decays as current flows from the capacitor. The voltage is an exponential function of time.

where RC is the time constant.

1. Plot the voltage as a function of time on semi-log paper to achieve a straight line with a slope of -1/RC.

2. Determine the time constant from the plot.

   Recall

   

   You can draw semi-log paper on linear graph paper using this data.