Abstract: High frequency capacitance measurement on a single strand of deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) or a ribonucleic acid (RNA) is employed to provide identification of the nucleotides in the strand. Effect of variations in the capacitance of nucleotides can be minimized by employing statistical quantities generated from multiple measurement values on a strand of DNA or RNA nucleotides, or by employing a program that positively identifies a large capacitance nucleotide upon detection of a large capacitance. Capacitance data on a DNA strand can be used as a criterion for identifying the DNA sequence in conjunction with other methods for identifying the DNA sequence.