Imagine you are looking at a classic L-C-R series circuit. We have an inductor with L=30 mH, a resistor with R=1Ω, and an unknown capacitor C, all driven by an AC source with an angular frequency ω=300 rad/s.
To mathematically capture this relationship, we turn to the impedance triangle. The phase angle
ϕ is related to the reactances and resistance by the formula:
tanϕ=RXC−XL
Since we know
ϕ=45∘ and
R=1Ω, we can substitute these right in. And because
tan45∘=1, our equation simplifies beautifully:
1=1XC−XL⟹XC−XL=1
Now, let's find out what
XL is. The inductive reactance is simply the product of the angular frequency and the inductance:
XL=ωL=300×30×10−3=9Ω
Armed with
XL, we can easily find
XC from our simplified master equation:
XC−9=1⟹XC=10Ω
We are in the endgame now. The capacitive reactance
XC is inversely proportional to the capacitance
C:
XC=ωC1
Substituting our known values:
10=300×C1
To match the format requested in the question, we can rewrite this as:
C=31×10−3 F
Comparing this to the given expression
x1×10−3 F, it is crystal clear that:
x=3