I thought I understood capacitors, voltage doublers and such until I read this article:

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/projects/build-your-own-negative-voltage-generator/

if both sides of a capacitor are at 0V and plate 1 is suddenly brought to 10V, the voltage on the other plate will immediately begin to rise to 10V.

Huh?

If you charge one side of a capacitor to 10V the other side does not go to 10V as well. Right? This is very confusing.

 

@upand_at_them
Hi, I am the author of this article.

This is called capacitive coupling and is concerned with AC signals that change quickly. For DC voltages this is not true but if you apply an AC voltage on one side of a capacitor plate you will see a voltage "trying" to match this voltage on the other side.