we kow that flow of electron is opposite to the flow of electron , is realy electron moves? please justify?

Question

let us start assumig that electron is moving opposite to the current, with a velocity approximate equal to light velocity that is 3 lakh km/sec. we know the mass of electron is very low that is 1840 times lower than the proton. but it has higher velocity, so evry partricle has a inertia. Now suppose we a cut a live wire in which current is flowing, what will happen. Is the electron fall out because of inertia ? Please anyone can clear my doubt.

Answer 1

NO! ELECTRON DOES NOT MOVE AT THE SPEED OF LIGHT! Electricity does.

Electron strike other elecron which is its neighbour and electron strike other elecron which is its neighbour andelectron strike other elecron which is its neighbour .... the chain continues.


Electron moves with what is called drift velocity. Try searching for drift velocity of electron you willl find your answer there!

Answer 2

you do cut live wires all the time... when you switch off lights. When the light switch is moved from the "on" to the "off" position, the switch goes from closed to open. It breaks open the electric circuit, basically the same as what you describe in the words "suppose we cut a live wire in which current is flowring".

So what does happen? The moment you open the switch, the electricity does try to keep flowing...as the switch contacts separate, the current keeps flowing by jumping across the small gap just after the contacts separate. Normally you don't see this because it happens behind the plastic shield around the light switch. But if you did watch the exposed contacts as they separated when the switch opened, you would see a spark of electricity, as the current jumped across the gap separating the conducting path.

Of course, the spark stops very quickly, because it takes a lot of work for some electrons to jump across the empty gap. What happens very quickly, is a bunch of electrons pile up in the end of the wire where it is cut, and this pile up pushes back the other electrons coming down the wire, until all the electrons stop.

So your question is right. The electrons can't stop instantly. Some do fall out of the wire in the first instant when it is cut.

Answer 3

All the descriptions of "sparks" and current continuing after a wire is cut are not a result of electron inertlia. As pointed out in several responses, the electron speed in a wire is very low, and that combined with the tiny electron mass means extremely low momentum for an electron. It will stop almost instantly if its driving force (electric field) is removed. What keeps the current flowing in a cut wire (through arcing) is inductance or inductive reactance. The effect of the magnetic fields associated with current in a wire is to make fast changes in current difficult to achieve (generating high voltages). This resistance (like an inertia) to current changes is called inductance. It is impossible to have zero inductance, because any current generates a magnetic field which stores energy, and that in turn produces the inductive effect.

By the way, the convention of current flow being opposite to electron flow is simply a result of the convention that the electron was assigned a negative charge. If electric current consisted of flowing positrons, the current flow is in the same direction as particle motion. Those of us who remember vacuum tubes and their circuits know that when drawing the current path in a tube circuit, current is shown flowing into the anode ("plate") to the cathode (filament). However, we knew that the electrons physically travelled from cathode to anode

Answer 4

The electron is NOT moving at the speed of light in an electrical current. In fact the electrons are moving extremely slow. The speed of elecricity comes when you move one electron, it moves the next electron, and the next until the last one at the end of the wire moves out. This all happens near the speed of light, but each electron only moved one atom in distance. Think of it this way...when you turn the water on in your sink, the water comes out immediately, but it did not travel all the way from the water treatment plant. It was sitting in the pipe, and a little water was added at the end from the plant.

And BTW YES, electricity has inertia. Thats why when you flip a switch to "off" quickly, it sparks. Current cannot go from full blast to stop in no time. Some excess electricity spills off the end and makes an arc. This is how spark plugs work too. It's very fascinating.

Answer 5

The individual electrons in a wire do not move at anywhere near the speed of light. For a copper wire of radius 1 mm carrying a steady current of 10 Amps, the drift velocity is only about 0.024 cm/sec. The drift velocity being the speed of an individual electron.

Things behave very much like a pipe full of ball bearings. If you push one in at one end, one falls out of the other end almost at once but it will take a long time for the individual ball bearing to reach the other end.

Answer 6

Electron can transport one matter to another,, just read the experiement on static electricity ,,,, after rubbing rod on cloth,, it gets charged,,,,, but when u cut the wire with current to flow,,,, it will disconnect the current becoz current needs complete circuit,,,, when u will cut wire,,,,, the current flow will disconnect at that instant,,,,, hence electron will stop flowing,,,, it will not fall,, becoz weight of electron is almost equal to zero

Answer 7

Definately no. Their speed is high enough so as not to be affected by inertia. Take for instance weightlessnes in a space ship which is still in the earths atmosphere.