Electrostatic Capacity

Term

Electrostatic capacity

Modern Equivalent

Capacitance.

Steinmetz often uses capacity where modern engineering usually says capacitance. In dielectric and condenser contexts, the older phrase electrostatic capacity makes the electrostatic field-storage meaning explicit.

Steinmetz Usage

In the dielectric-loss chapter of Theory and Calculation of Alternating Current Phenomena, the OCR candidate identifies C as the electrostatic capacity of a dielectric layer and immediately connects it to capacity susceptance:

b = 2\pi f C

That is the AC bridge between stored electrostatic energy and the quadrature current drawn by a dielectric or condenser.

Mathematical Meaning

Modern notation would usually write capacitance as:

C = \frac{\varepsilon A}{d}

where A is area, d is dielectric thickness or separation, and \varepsilon is permittivity. Steinmetz’s OCR passage uses older dielectric notation and then places that capacity inside the AC relation for susceptance.

Historical Note

The older wording matters because capacity was not merely a name for a component value. It meant the ability of an electrostatic system to store charge and field energy under impressed potential. Modern textbooks often compress this into the component parameter C.

Ether-Field Interpretive Reading

In an ether-field reading, electrostatic capacity is the measurable ability of a dielectric configuration to accept field compression under potential difference. This is an interpretation, not proof of Steinmetz’s private ontology. What the source layer supports is narrower: Steinmetz treats capacity as an electrostatic field quantity that produces a definite AC susceptance.

Current Status

Still used, renamed. The modern term is capacitance. The older phrases capacity, specific capacity, and electrostatic capacity remain historically important because they show the dielectric field meaning before the language became mostly circuit-parameter shorthand.