Alternately flashing LED circuit
 

I'm ashamed that I can't figure this out, since I took a 21 block coarse in Electronic Principles, but that was years ago. It has all been flushed down the toilet-o-knowledge, so help me out please.

View Diagram Here(NPN left PNP right)

I understand that this circuit will oscillate the flashing of two LED's, but I don't understand how to determine which LED lights first. It is a mirror image. So, does one capacitor just happen to charge faster than the other, becuase they are rated the same.

Herk

Looks like it to me.

Thanks for the reply, but on a theory level, how does that work? All of the mirrored components have the exact same specifications.

Regardless of the mirrored components unless your parts are all areospace spec there will be some variation in the tolerance of the devices. A couple of ohms difference in the resistors or farads in the caps and one of the circuits will charge more quickly. With the crossconnects that load/discharge time will very quickly reach a state that it's complimentary and you won't be able to notice the time difference, if any, in the flash time.

Well, I'm still lost. I want to be clear that I'm speaking of theory, not practical use. What, in theory, cause one light to light first, or is it only based on impurities and inconsistancies?

If you used incredibly mached components it would make no difference.

Do to the random nature of electrons untill told where to go, the circuit will never be PERFECTLY balanced.

The positive feedback in this classic flip flop exploits that property.

In pure theory with perfectly ideal components the circuit wouldn't work as an astable multivibrator