how electricity tranels through metal?

Answer 1

Well, we're hitting all around it hear. My understanding is that metals have mobile (loosely attached) electrons on the surface. That is what creates the metallic luster (shiney).

The motion is not really like a stream flowing, but like billard balls. An electron enters one atom and kicks another loose which in turn enters another atom and kicks another loose, and so on. It is true the only occurs on the surface. Which is why stranded wire can carry more current than solid wire of the same guage (more surface area)

Answer 2

Copper is used for wire because it 'gives up' electrons fairly easily. There are other metals that work better but they are more expensive, like silver and gold. As electrons flow into the wire, it causes all the electrons to displace themselves. Kinda like a big football player sitting on an already full bench. He causes everyone to move to the other side and the last guy gets bumped off. Think of electricity moving through a wire like water moves through a hose. Thats why a lot of people thing electricity flows at the speed of light. That is not true. Actually in your house, the electricity in your wires is traveling at about 10 meters per second. It seems like instantaneously because the wire is like a hose full of water. If you turn on a full hose, water will pour out of the other end instantly. If electricity traveled at the speed of light, the wires would burn up and melt instantly from resistance.

Answer 3

Conductors, the only materials through which electricity will travel, are made of compounds and alloys that contain atoms that easily shed electrons from their valent, or outer-most ring. (Gold, Silver, Copper, etc. seem to do this quite well) The electric current at one end of a copper wire excites the valent electrons in the copper, causing them to shed to the next atom of the conductor. When this new ring has too many electrons, it, in turn, sheds an electron to the next atom. This process repeats all the way down the conductor.
NOTE: The reason that rubber will not conduct electricity is because the atoms of which it is made do not shed any electrons from their valent orbit shells.

Answer 4

Good answers above. HOWEVER, technically, the electrons do not travel through the metal. Since they are of same charge, they repulse each other and end up travelling along the outside of the metal. Thus, when current runs "through" a wire, it is actually running along the outside (all around the outside, forming a "skin") of the wire.

Answer 5

In technology and engineering, conductors are components that incorporate movable expenditures of electricity. while an electric means distinction is inspired for the time of separate factors on a conductor, the cellular expenditures interior the conductor are compelled to go, and an electric cutting-edge between those factors seems in accordance with Ohm's regulation. mutually as many conductors are steel, there are various non-steel conductors as properly, alongside with all plasmas. See electric conduction for extra tips on the actual mechanism for charge flow in components. below regular situations, all components furnish some resistance to flowing expenditures, which generates warmth. for that reason, ideal layout of an electric conductor includes an estimate of the temperature that the conductor is expected to bear with out harm, as properly by using fact the quantity of electric cutting-edge. The action of expenditures additionally creates an electromagnetic field around the conductor that exerts a mechanical radial squeezing tension on the conductor. A conductor of a given cloth and volume (length x bypass-sectional area) has no real decrease to the present it could carry with out being destroyed as long by using fact the warmth generated by employing the resistive loss is bumped off and the conductor can face up to the radial forces. This result's very severe in revealed circuits, the place conductors are somewhat small and the warmth produced, if no longer ideal bumped off, could reason fusing (melting) of the tracks. Non-carrying out components lack cellular expenditures and are noted as insulators. a cloth could be an electric conductor with out being a thermal conductor, even with the undeniable fact that a metallic could be the two an electric conductor and a thermal conductor. Electrically conductive components are many times labeled in accordance to their electric resistance; beginning from severe to null resistance, there are semiconductors, common steel conductors (additionally noted as regular metals), and superconductors.

Answer 6

Outer electrons move from potential to potential along the metallic atoms.

Answer 7

Good answer Robo. Try this one the free electrons in metals move from atom to atom allowing current to flow.....