Do you know how a capacitor works? i.e. what it does?

Alternating charged current arrives at one terminal on the cap. The load to ground is connected at the other terminal of the cap. Actually 'alternating' can be a confusing electrical term to some folks. Think of the charged current as a wave that delivers this positive current from the bottom to the top of the wave and retreats or falls off at the bottom of the other side of the wave. This condition is caused from the rotating action of the rotor turning inside the stator fields in a generator. The ground through the load is attracted to the positively charged electrons at the barrier of the cap at the top of the wave from the generator. Now. Think charge separation on the ground side. As the electrons become excited on the ground side of the cap at the barrier across from the positive charge (attraction), a vacancy of non-charged electrons has occurred downstream at ground. When the positive charge and current falls at the bottom of the wave from the generator side, the excited electrons at the barrier of the cap on the ground side are now positive (charge separation) and move to power the load and fill the vacancy to ground. This is also the reason for the delay of current and charge moving through a cap to ground. A larger barrier equals a longer delay (faud rating). Nothing but magnetic field attraction between electrons has happened at the cap barrier. This is why a DC current cannot move through a cap. It has no wave. If we pulse the DC, we can get it to move through the cap, but at a lower efficiency than AC. callowayengines dot com

A capacitor will only ever generate an A.C. current because the capacitor is designed to first store charge and then release this charge. This implies charge must increase, then decrease. Current is defined as: Current = Rate of change of Charge; =(Change in Charge) / (Change in Time); Therefore, the current must also increase, then decrease, in other words, it alternates. This would conclude a simple explanation of why circuits with capacitors in them are A.C circuits.

This question is good, and has a fairly simple answer: the current which passes through a capacitor is a function of *change* in charge over the change in time. i(t) = dq(t)/dt The faster the charge changes, the higher the current.

because there's a non capacitor pathway that drains the current constantly allowing for slow caps.

An analogy... I can't get away of anologies with water .... Ever see a water pressure tank... Its a type of water capacitor.. stores energy for a later use .. water runs into a closed tank filled with air ... it eventually stops flowing once it reaches full pressure.. DC currrent like water flows in one direction .. once the capacitor is "charged" to full voltage current stops ... Now AC current flows one way for a bit and back the other way for a bit thus the water capacitor is charged and discharged accordingly ...

in order for a capacitor to funtion in which it was designed, both sides of the "plates" in the capacitor have to either be charged or discharged this can only happen with an alternating current .think of the word "alternate" in relation to "both" sides of the capacitor.

Do you know about the Capacitive Reactance of a Capacitor? It is defined as the measure of Capacitor opposition to the Alternating Cuurent.It is measured in ohms but the frequency plays a major role. The Xc = 1/(2*3.14*f*C) Xc - Capacitive Reactance in Ohms f - Frequency in Hertz C - Capacitence in Farad For Steady DC the frequency is Zero.So Xc becomes infinity. Thats why the Capacitor blocks the DC.