Timeline for Why are electrons not pushed out from the conductor at an open circuit under the influence of a power source?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
6 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 26, 2014 at 14:38 | comment | added | asawyer | @Luaan Ah ok that makes perfect sense. | |
| Sep 26, 2014 at 14:31 | comment | added | Luaan | @asawyer You need to think about the wave, not just the individual particles. When you push on a stick, (almost) the whole energy of your push will be transferred to the other side, even though the atoms on one side didn't move all the way to the other side - the energy was propagated in a wave over the electrons and atoms, without having to move them too much. A bad but fitting analogy would be Newton's craddle. | |
| Sep 26, 2014 at 13:32 | comment | added | asawyer | I have a question - If electrons move so slowly how do so many of them (6241,509,324,000,000,000 per amp per second?) move to create the current? | |
| Sep 24, 2014 at 17:02 | comment | added | JIm Dearden | @GeorgeHerold absolutely correct and thanks for clarifying (+1). I've tried to avoid getting into maths details over thermal motion (fast, random movements in all directions but essentially net zero movement overall) vs drift velocity (slow migration in hops in the general direction of the applied field). | |
| Sep 24, 2014 at 14:38 | comment | added | George Herold | Hi Jim, Just to be clear the drift of electrons in a metal due to external E fields can be slow. But the thermal motion is very fast. (something like 1/2mv^2 = 3/2 kT say v^2 = kT/m I get ~ 2x10^5 m/s assuming an effective mass of 1.) | |
| Sep 24, 2014 at 11:15 | history | answered | JIm Dearden | CC BY-SA 3.0 |