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Explain capacitor charging in an RC circuit as you would to a capable student, in 3-4 sentences.

# Capacitor Charging in an RC Circuit When you connect a voltage source to a resistor-capacitor (RC) circuit, current initially flows freely because the uncharged capacitor acts like a short circuit. As charge accumulates on the capacitor plates, it builds up an opposing voltage that increasingly resists the current flow, causing the charging rate to slow down exponentially. The voltage across the capacitor approaches the source voltage following the equation V(t) = V₀(1 - e^(-t/RC)), where RC is the "time constant" that determines how quickly the capacitor charges—after one time constant, the capacitor reaches about 63% of full charge.