energy transfer efficiency

[JohnDenker]

In section 26.2 on page 689 it says:

the battery has done work on the electrons; this work has now become electric potential energy stored in the capacitor.

It is exceedingly unlikely that all the work done by the battery shows up as potential energy in the capacitor. Unless you do something complicated and clever, something not even hinted at in the book, you'd be lucky if 50% of the energy that comes out of the battery ends up in the capacitor.

This has enormous real-world significance. Relevant applications include electronic chips. A desktop CPU typically has a fan and an enormous heat-sink. Most of the dissipated power has to do with charging and discharging the capacitance of the on-chip logic gates.

Suggestion:

During the charging process, energy flows out of the battery. Some of it is dissipated as heat, and some of it ends up as electrostatic potential energy in the capacitor. We will not investigate the details of the energy transfer.

[JohnDenker]

The footnote on page 700 explicitly assumes there is no dissipation, and asserts:

In practice this is a reasonable assumption.

Abundant evidence indicates it is not a reasonable assumption.