Killivolt, my argument is not about the specifics of what happens inside the capacitor. I have been quite clear about that. My argument has been with Ratchit's sloppy misuse of the global terms CURRENT and THROUGH, given that this is an electronics forum.
Current as a global term is a greater concept than what might be happening to one electron. "Current" must also be given a high importance as a concept and as a flow in a series circuit. Something that can easily be measured, calculated, simulated.
"Through" as a global concept is greater than what may be happening INSIDE a component to a single electron. If a mystery component in a series circuit has 1 amp in and 1 amp out, it satisfies "current through" in enough ways to be respected as true. If it later is discovered that that mystery component was a capacitor it is foolish to then say "oh well, that current we just measured going through the component wasn't going "through" after all".
If you want to know if CURRENT is going THROUGH something, use an ammeter.
Now if Ratchit had used the term "current INSIDE the capacitor" or "electron behaviour inside the capacitor" then I may have let it drop. But to state "There is no current through a X" on an electronics forum, for any type of X, needed to be called out.
Mr Al-
'Does CURRENT flow THROUGH a capacitor?' Yes. 'What is displacement current?' It is a term used for current by people who are overly concerned with what is happening inside a capacitor.
'Are you going to tell them that displacement current is the same thing as conduction current?' No, I'm going to tell them that current THROUGH anything can be measured with an ammeter. Whether it is displaced or conducted is only of relevance in the rare case you might care what is happening to an electron inside a component and might be of interest in physics but has practically zero place in electronics.
I'll take you back to your quote of Prof Viken, here is a man that is intelligent, highly educated and an expert in this field. Note how his reluctance to use the terms CURRENT and THROUGH left him incapacitated, struggling deperately to grasp a word, or words, any words, to describe CURRENT THROUGH. A fundamental concept.
Current through a cap is true. Now current inside a cap? Electron behaviour inside a cap? Well they can be argued over by pedantic people and physicists.
Mr RB:
Zero place in electronics? You have to realize what you just said. You just said that this thread says nothing more about a capacitor then the external view, which if you read back, i was debating with Ratchit about, and i took the side you are taking now. But also if you read back, you'll see that i digressed in order to get more in line with what the original poster asked. The original poster wants to know what "really" happens.
Now you want to define what "really" happens as what happens outside the cap, while the main reason most of the people are talking here is to figure out what happens inside the cap. We already know what happens outside the cap, it's time to move on to what happens inside the cap.
I agree with you in that it is simpler to look at this from outside the cap where the wires allow us to measure the current directly, but here we are looking for the physical reason why the cap works at all, not just why it conducts current in its two leads. Do you understand this?
I am saying that you are right, that we can look at the cap from the outside, and I ARGUED WITH Ratchit that very same point way back in this thread, but i am also saying that now we want to take a look at the inside the cap. I regret to have to say that one or two people dont need a third persons permission to do this, whether they succeed or not.
If God himself came down here tomorrow and said, "MrAL, current goes through a capacitor". I'd say, well thank you very much for clearing that up. But that would not mean that i would not want to also know why this is happening. In other words i'd have to also reply, "Ok thanks God, so while you are here, how does that happen inside the cap or in or at the plates?"
The professor was rendered incapacitated? He taught what he set out to teach so i dont see how he was incapacitated. He stumbled over his words a little but was very careful not to say that current flows through a capacitor. He avoided that for a reason, and stated outright that current does not flow through a capacitor.
On this site we talk about electronics, mathematics, and physics. We are now in the realm of physics, not strictly electronics, which is a lot different because physics asks more questions than electronics does, and thus wants more answers.
Another illustration here...
"The field of an air core inductor extends to infinity"
Now do we have to know that when we analyze a circuit? Not really, no. But in physics if we didnt know that we couldnt understand it fully, and find out that quantum mechanics would state it slightly different, but still would not ignore it as we can get away with in electronics.
So you see we really have two different fields of study here, the electronic view and the physics view. We know what the electronic view is, but now we want to look at the physics view.
Thanks.
PS
You said that if we want to know if current is going through something, use an ammeter. We want to know if current is flowing through the vacuum of space between the capacitor plates. How do you suggest we do this?
You might be interested to know that Professor Viken tried this already too and was unsuccessful.