Solution

ID: past-exam-of-the-physics-course-of-the-year-1-of-the-natural-sciences-course-of-the-university-of-cambridge/2016/paper-1/section-c/c10/solution

After switching, Kirchhoff's voltage law gives the free series RLC circuit equation
Its characteristic roots are , where
A real, nonzero oscillation frequency requires . For a passive resistor,
The endpoint is the undamped limit; strictly decaying oscillations have . The critical endpoint itself does not have a nonzero .
Let denote the initial electric charge, so and . Distinguish from the amplitude coefficient in an exponential-times-cosine representation: imposing zero initial electric current generally requires a nonzero phase.

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