Does electricity go thur the wire or around the wire?
2007-02-23 04:45:43 · 10 answers · asked by Jan H 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Engineering
Electricity travels fast (186,000 miles per second). If you traveled that fast, you could travel around the world eight times in the time it takes to turn on a light! And if you had a lamp on the moon wired to a switch in your bedroom, it would take only 1.26 seconds after you flipped the switch for electricity to light the lamp 238,857 miles away!
Electricity travels in a circuit. When you switch on an appliance, you complete the circuit. Electricity flows along power lines to the outlet, through the power cord into the appliance, then back through the cord to the outlet and out to the power lines again.
(The speed of electricity through a wire is a bit of a complex question. It depends on whether you are considering the rate at which electrons themselves flow along a wire or whether you are considering the rate at which an electrical signal passes along a wire.
In the first case, electrons themselves move quite slowly - about 100 micrometres per second (or, from another perspective, 1 metre in about 2.8 hours!) Clearly, this is not what we observe when we turn on a light switch.
Ideally, electricity moves at the speed of light. Imagine a tube full of marbles. If you push a marble in at one end of the tube, another marble pops out the other end almost instantaneously. Even if the individual marbles are moving very slowly, the marble "wavefront" is travelling at a very high velocity.
In the real world, things are not quite so tidy. Electricity flowing through a gas, or having to work its way through electronic components such as resistors or capacitors, can be slowed to speeds of 60 to 80 percent of light speed. However, that's still fast enough that you can safely expect the light to come on as soon as you flick the switch.
2007-02-23 05:04:24 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 5⤊ 0⤋
You're asking the wrong question. Electricity does not 'travel'. It is the energy made available by the flow of electric charge through a conductor.
The flow of electric charge is called current; its units are amperes (coulombs per second).
The force directing the flow is called potential; its units are volts (joules per coulomb).
Electric potential applied to a conductor 'jostles' the free electrons of the conductor ... just as some previous answerer pointed out about the marbles. The electric current 'flows' by having the electrons bump the next one down the line, until the last one gives its energy to the next item attached to the conductor.
At one time, it was thought that current passed through the conductor in all cases; now, there is some evidence to prove that this is not always the case. Lower frequency signals pass through the conductor, while higher frequency signals use a small 'skin' of the material only (this is called 'skin effect').
2007-02-23 05:43:44 · answer #2 · answered by CanTexan 6 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Think of a wire as a tube filled with marbles, those marbels represent electrons, the part of an atom that IS electricity. Now push a marble in one side, one should pop out the other, thats how electricity works. The metal in the wire is just a sea of small, dense positivly charged atom nucleii with a bunch of electrons floating around. There are a few missing so there are "holes" one electron jups from its spot into another empty one and another takes its place (like a perpetual game of musical chairs). If an electron jumps in from one side, one will get kicked out the other.
2007-02-23 04:54:10 · answer #3 · answered by Scooter_MacGyver 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Electricity travels in a loop called a circuit. A circuit has an energy source and wires; it may also have a load and a switch. There must be no breaks in the loop in order for current to flow. A loop with no breaks is called a closed circuit.
https://www.electrikals.com/
2015-10-07 14:57:29 · answer #4 · answered by shaun 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
It's like flow in a water pipe. Pressure causes water to move.
With electricity you have Volts (Pressure) and Amps (flow).
Electrons are moving along the wire from negative to positive.
2007-02-23 05:02:47 · answer #5 · answered by Norrie 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The current which is moving charge goes through the wire.
2007-02-23 04:48:34 · answer #6 · answered by Gene 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Electrons actually travel on the outside of each strand of wire. They do not travel on the inside the wire. The release of the free valance electrons from excitation causes the electricity to flow. One free valance electron in one end of the wire creates one free electron out the other end of the wire...basically. Introductory Electricity college course taught me that.
2015-11-22 12:52:46 · answer #7 · answered by Norm Pennington 1 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Through wires. I don't think the day of the week has anything to do with it.
2007-02-23 04:53:04 · answer #8 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
CanTexan....totally nailed this question .....well done!!
Although, a small point...current flow does depend on conductor resistivity and cross sectional area (as you eluded to with the skin effect). electrons "flow" best when not crowded!!
Very insightful answer CanTexan!!
Your answer in short: for most purposes.."within the wire"!!
2007-02-23 17:50:37 · answer #9 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
hi, i belive that it travels because the volts are pusing the energy through the conducters and it finally reaches the lightbulb or wherever its traviling to
2013-10-02 15:37:12 · answer #10 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋