>>>... said something like "once you represent the capacitance as real and inductivity as imaginary, it all becomes so simple".
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>>That would be a bad idea... The resistance is the only "real" part, inductance and capacitance are the imaginary part, and the composite of the last two makes up the reactance.
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>Therefore I am not an electronics engineer, and memory doesn't serve that well after 16-17 years, Q.E.D. :)
>
>BTW, I assume inductance and capacitance are not entirely imaginary, as they should behave differently. Are they actually complex? I assume they'd be at somehow right angles, i.e. not being at max at the same time. Well, I'm probably way out of my field here, but this matter where a purely imaginary mathematical game plays so well in a real situation (the other one is Zhukov's function, as far as complex stuff is considered) has always intrigued me.

One is positive imaginary, the other, negative imaginary. I think capacitance is negative imaginary. I don't remember exactly, but I can look it up if anybody is really interested...

In other words: combined with a pure resitance (the "real" part"), one will give you a positive phase angle, the other, a negative phase angle.

This means, in practical terms, that a capacitance can actually offset, totally or in part, an inductivity (depending how they are connected).

Hilmar.