How electricity travels?

Answer 1

The term electricity colloquially refers to electric current, which is the flow of charge. How that happens depends on the medium in which electric charge is traveling.

In metals it is through the flow of electrons. Basically, the atoms of a metal are sitting in a structure with the electrons floating around in what is sometimes referred to as the "electron gas." When a field is applied to the metal, it causes electric current as these electrons flow.

However, it is not essential for electrons to cause electric current. The flow of charged ions does much the same thing. This happens most frequently in fluids (e.g. during electrolysis of water, when hydrogen ions flow to the negative terminal and oxygen ions flow to the positive terminal). But it can also happen in a vacuum, e.g. the solar wind consists of ionized elements (mostly Hydrogen, i.e. mostly just protons as atomic Hydrogen is one proton and one electron), which when they stream through space technically constitute electric currents.

Answer 2

Current (coulombs per time) is normally measured as amperes (coulombs per second). A coulomb is a unit of negative charge equivalent to the charge of a single electron.

As one person answered, a negative charge can come from something other than a single electron...like an oxygen atom. An O atom has two negative charges and that's why it takes two hydrogen atoms, each one a plus charge, to link up with one oxygen in good old H2O (water).

What is not well understood is that electrons move very slowly through media, like a wire. Electron drift, the actual motion of an electron through something, is typically on the order of a few centimeters per second at normal voltage potentials. [See source.]

That hardly explains why our lights go on the moment we flick the wall switch. Power is seemingly instantaneous because power is the result of the group wavefront of the electrons when focused in one direction by a voltage across the wire. And, like a wavefront of light, the wavefront of those electrons also travels at light speed. Without the voltage, the electrons simply move about at random (with something called the Fermi velocity) and have no coherent wavefront.

One final comment...electricity, electrons, travels from negative to positive. But, and this is a big BUT, EE grads will tell you that current flows from positive to negative. (Which is why EE drives us physicists nuts.) The positive to negative convention is a historical one that came into being long before electrons and their true nature were discovered. And EE people have been stuck with it ever since.

Answer 3

The electrons of the atoms within the conductor are 'pushed' along the conductor by the Potential (voltage) Difference (P.D.) across the circuit. The electrons (negative charge) will travel towards the positive side of the system thereby setting up an 'Electrical Current', (Amps).
It can be compared to the Pressure Difference (P.D.) along a pipeline carrying a fluid. The P.D. in this case causes the fluid to flow along the pipe.

Answer 4

Electricity "travels" like peas in a straw. Stuff an electron in one end, one pops out of the other end. Thus the speed of electricity is actually faster than the speed of an individual electron moving down the path.

Answer 5

Another thing about electric lightning, a static charge, in a electrical storm lightening travels from earth to cloud. up not down.

Answer 6

Electrons are charged and mobile in metal wires. Charges are accelerated by electric fields. Electrical current (moving charge) in an AC transmission line is carried along by a transverse electromagnetic wave.

Answer 7

ELECTRICITY TRAVELS:
1. IN A LOOP AROUND A CLOSED CIRCUIT
2. AS ELECTRONS FROM NEGATIVE TO POSITIVE
3. CONVENTION LY FROM POSITIVE TO NEGATIVE
4. IN A TRANSISTOR FROM EMITTER TO COLLECTOR
5. IN A VACUUM TUBE FROM CATHODE TO ANODE,(OR PLATE)

Answer 8

because it doesn't have any mass that why nothing can pull it, it can go all around.

Answer 9

WTF? Is this a statement or a question?