In most pictures I see of parallel plate capacitors, the charges are drawn so that they're entirely on the inner surface of the plates.

I accept that there can't be any net charge within the conducting plates, as that would lead to a non-zero electric field within the metal, and charges would move to the surface.

However, I see no reason why charge can't reside on both sides of the same plate. If we had charge accumulate on both sides (positive charge on both sides of the top one, and negative charge on both sides of the bottom one), we would still get a zero electric field within the metal.

Or...am I incorrect to assume that charge only distributes itself on the inner surfaces? I'd like to understand this both for the infinite plate idealization, and for the finite plate reality.

In most pictures I've seen of parallel plate capacitors, charges are drawn so that they're entirely on the inner surface of the plates.

I accept that there can't be any net charge within the conducting plates, as that would lead to a non-zero electric field within the metal, and charges would move to the surface.

However, I see no reason why charge can't reside on both sides of the same plate. I feel like there should be a way to have charge accumulate on both sides of the same plate, and still get a zero electric field within the metal. How can we show that there isn't?

Or...am I incorrect to assume that charge only distributes itself on the inner surfaces? I'd like to understand this both for the infinite plate idealization, and for the finite plate reality.

Thank you for reading. In most pictures I see of parallel plate capacitors, the charges are drawn so that they're entirely on the inner surface of the plates.

I accept that there can't be any net charge within the conducting plates, as that would lead to a non-zero electric field within the metal, and charges would move to the surface.

However, I see no reason why charge can't reside on both sides of the same plate. If we had charge accumulate on both sides (positive charge on both sides of the top one, and negative charge on both sides of the bottom one), we would still get a zero electric field within the metal.

Or...am I incorrect to assume that charge only distributes itself on the inner surfaces? I'd like to understand this both for the infinite plate idealization, and for the finite plate reality.

Thank you.

In most pictures I see of parallel plate capacitors, the charges are drawn so that they're entirely on the inner surface of the plates.

I accept that there can't be any net charge within the conducting plates, as that would lead to a non-zero electric field within the metal, and charges would move to the surface.

However, I see no reason why charge can't reside on both sides of the same plate. If we had charge accumulate on both sides (positive charge on both sides of the top one, and negative charge on both sides of the bottom one), we would still get a zero electric field within the metal.

Or...am I incorrect to assume that charge only distributes itself on the inner surfaces? I'd like to understand this both for the infinite plate idealization, and for the finite plate reality.