Speed of Electricity in a Cable

[VNandor]

Sigh, yet more utter nonsense.

The electric field creates the force that gets the electrons moving; the flow of electrons is electricity. Honestly, this is basic stuff any 9th grader would know.

Someone needs to teach this guy that adding exclamation points to doesn't achemically turn BS into science.

http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html
You really shouldn't be arguing about what electricity is if the last time you learned about it was 40 years ago in high school. People who actually has to deal with electricity usually mean the electromagnetic field by "electricity". Your overly simplistic "flow of electron" definition is actually the literal high school level definition of it. If you follow through the link I gave to you, you might understand why this definition is incorrect and would lead to contradictions.

Ghoostknight had this (extremely common, I give him that) misconception about electricity. If you understand electricity as just electrons moving from one point to an other one really fast, like a "flow of electrons", it doesn't give an explanation of why AC is dangerous. If you understand it as an electromagnetic field then suddenly it's more obvious why AC is dangerous.

 

[bigshot]

Audiophools always think of electricity in terms of spigots and hoses full of water. It's not a good analogy, but they grip onto it firmly with both hands.

 

[danadam]

Almost (or exactly) like "stairsteps" in digital audio

 

[Somafunk]

http://amasci.com/miscon/whatis.html
You really shouldn't be arguing about what electricity is if the last time you learned about it was 40 years ago in high school. People who actually has to deal with electricity usually mean the electromagnetic field by "electricity". Your overly simplistic "flow of electron" definition is actually the literal high school level definition of it. If you follow through the link I gave to you, you might understand why this definition is incorrect and would lead to contradictions.

Ghoostknight had this (extremely common, I give him that) misconception about electricity. If you understand electricity as just electrons moving from one point to an other one really fast, like a "flow of electrons", it doesn't give an explanation of why AC is dangerous. If you understand it as an electromagnetic field then suddenly it's more obvious why AC is dangerous.

On our first day in the second year of Electronic/Mechanical Engineering our professor looked at us and said “forget everything you learned and understand from last year”, (or words to that effect) he wasn’t wrong………I developed a stress headache for the first few months and started grinding my teeth whilst asleep so had to wear a guard, I eventually cracked a molar.

I should’ve studied Art/Classics/English Literature or something easy as we never had free time.

25 years later I’m still unsure if I “actually” understand it or whether I “know enough” to get by without killing myself

 

[bigshot]

Try “knowing enough” in art! That isn’t easy either.

 

[Somafunk]

Try “knowing enough” in art! That isn’t easy either.

Yeah, but not knowing expressionism from realism isn’t going to kill you…….unless you have particularly vicious tutor

 

[bigshot]

Yeah... it's more than knowing though. It's being able to *do* good enough that someone is willing to pay you for it.

 

[71 dB]

The word "electricity" has different meanings in different contexts.

 

[chesebert]

electromagnetic waves transmitting analog sound signals travel at the roughly the same "speed" as electrons in a circuit at slightly less than 3.8*10^8ms/s (speed of light).

electromagnetic waves and photons in a toslink optical cable do not have mass so travel at 3.8*10^8 ms/s
electrons do have mass travel slightly slower.

speed of the signal is nothing to worry about unless you're running cables in the hundreds of metres and need it to line up perfectly with something else down to the milliseconds or nanoseconds.

rather if you running cables thing long you'd worry more about electromagnetic interference from nearby other industrial cables that could interfere with analog signals.

running toslink optical would remove that interference.

I am pretty sure 3.8 X 10^8 is FTL travel

 

[chesebert]

Hello, just watched this which was quite interesting

bottom line seems to be, to actually change the speed of electricity you need to change the isolation or medium around the conductor, not the conductor itself...
i thought it was interesting because many audiophiles probably believe in faster flowing electrons with different cables, which might be actually true depending of the overall construction of the cable

It’s both.

G is conductance of dielectric of the insulator, in the case of that video it was waster, which isn’t very good (dielectric content of vacuum is 1 and water is like 80).

This is EECS 101.

Enjoy this light bedside reading https://www.ibiblio.org/kuphaldt/electricCircuits/AC/AC_14.html#xtocid89846

 

[gregorio]

Sigh, yet more utter nonsense.
The electric field creates the force that gets the electrons moving; the flow of electrons is electricity.

“Alternating current (AC) is an electric current that periodically reverses direction and changes its magnitude continuously with time, in contrast to direct current (DC), which flows only in one direction.” - Wikipedia

“The electrons in an AC circuit don't really move along with the current flow. Instead, they sort of sit and wiggle back and forth. They move one direction for 1/60th of a second, and then turn around and go the other direction for 1/60th of a second. The net effect is that they don't really go anywhere.” - Dummies

If “the flow of electrons is electricity” as you claim but electrons “don’t really go anywhere” in an AC circuit, then according to you; there isn’t any electricity in an AC circuit. lol

So you’re right that there is indeed “yet more utter nonsense” but as is typical, you don’t seem to realise YOU are the one spouting it!

Honestly, this is basic stuff any 9th grader would know.

Just so we’re clear, you’re admitting that your knowledge and understanding doesn’t extend beyond that of about a 14 year old but you thought you’d come to a science discussion forum, argue and call it “utter nonsense” anyway? Wouldn’t a 14 year old know to look something up in an encyclopaedia or at the VERY LEAST, get a “Dummies” level of understanding first? At what age do you think a child should learn that?

G

 

[VNandor]

On our first day in the second year of Electronic/Mechanical Engineering our professor looked at us and said “forget everything you learned and understand from last year”, (or words to that effect) he wasn’t wrong………I developed a stress headache for the first few months and started grinding my teeth whilst asleep so had to wear a guard, I eventually cracked a molar.

We had a first semester subject that went over high school math and physics. We couldn't pick up most of the subjects without passing that first. The water analogy brought up by bigshot can give a very good idea of how DC circuits behave under normal conditions even though it's just a high school level model that makes the analysis more intuitive. But you have to know the limits of such model because it certainly does not always apply.

 

[Ghoostknight]

Does someone actually know how far electrons travel at 60hz AC in one half cycle? i mean, some talked about electrons "wiggling" around (i would assume a few mm here) but 1/120 of a second is probably much larger distance for electrons than a few mm

Edit: So with electrons traveling at 300.000km / s .... 1/120 of that is 2,5km, so could we assume with AC electrons travel 2,5km before they turn around?

 

[bigshot]

Is there a point to this?

 

[Ghoostknight]

Is there a point to this?

yea if electrons travel that far we could assume some factors of DC analogys still apply to AC