/sci/ - Science & Math

>>10490498
becouse of resistance of wire and air. also electron has a mass. and don't forget than light speed in vacuum and in air are different. if we talk about air read about 'Vavilov-Cherenkov effect'

Poynting Vector is the cross product of the two vector fields produced by the e-, so electromagnetic waves (like light) will always be faster than gay ass electron moving on a wire

>>10490498
Electrons in a wire don't actually move much. What is moving is an electric wave guided by the wire. The speed of this wave is subject to the permittvity of the wire and interactions with charges carriers within and around the wire. The electric wave like light is limited by the speed c. Typically this wave moves at over .5c in wires though and even faster for specialized transmission lines.

>>10490661
This is the answer anon

>>10490498
the electrons can't move as fast as light because there's tons of them in the wire. they bump into one another
you can think of it as balls in a chute

>>10490498
*sigh* because so-called '''speed of light''' is the velocity of a photon travelling ***in a vacuum***, light travels at different velocities through different mediums.
>physicslets, when will they learn?

>>10491298
Haha nice, you totally owned those dummy physicslets with that high school physics level knowledge bomb

>>10491279
what about a single electron

>>10490498
Electrons actually travel really slow along copper wires. Do the math. Let [math] \rho_e [/math] be conducting electron density in the copper lattes. And when you taking into account of your typical copper wire, and the current it carries, you'll find that it's crawls. Imaging people in a line queued for lunch. The first person moves up; then the second; then the third....so on an so forth. It's the propagation of this movement that travels quickly down the line...and not the accrual electron.

>>10490498
Because its really really scared.

>>10490498
muh fermion interaction