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/sci/ - Science & Math

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2891378 No.2891378 [Reply] [Original]

When I insert the power cord to my lamp, the electrons don't go through the cord until I close the curcuit by turning the lamp on.

How does the electrons "know" that the curcuit isn't closed, when they haven't "been there" to check? It's like nature has some kind of operating system telling everything what to do.

>> No.2891386

No scientist actually knows the answer to this question.. They just know that electricity only flows if a circuit is created.

>> No.2891390

Feynman double slit, prepare to shot brox

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfPeprQ7oGc

>> No.2891393
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2891393

>No scientist actually knows the answer to this question

>> No.2891399

>>2891378
The electrons are already spread out equally throughout the cord, an electric current (AC) is simply the vibration back and forth of those electrons.

Learn to electric current.

>> No.2891408

>Well you see vibrations in the current, and dur de dur.. And vibrations of the electrons, and Vibrations of the vibrator.. And you see somehow this is related to the Double slit experiment which is a big dur de dur.

>> No.2891424

The actual electrons only travel at under a mile an hour. They force the next one forwards at almost the speed of light, though.

It's like a pipe full of water, and an empty pipe. When you put extra water into the full pipe, it instantly starts to spout water from the other end, no matter how slow the flow. If you put water into the empty pipe, it must fill to the spigot before any water comes out.

>> No.2891428
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2891428

>>2891424

>> No.2891432 [DELETED] 

>>2891424
Only alternating current bro.

>> No.2891437 [DELETED] 

>>2891432
>Implying that DC is somehow different and that electrons are magically given to the cord by the battery.

>> No.2891439

What if you had a greater-than-lightyear length cord?Would electrons flow immediately?
If so, does that mean flt communication?
If not, does that mean circuit completeness is communicated to the electrons?

>> No.2891447
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2891447

>>2891390
>>2891390
>>2891390

That is fucking mind boggling.

>> No.2891455
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2891455

>>2891378

>> No.2891458

>>2891439
from experience as a tour technician when I was younger, I can tell you that long electrical cables have a problem because the ampere (or maybe it is the watt, I can't remember which) falls as the cable gets longer. We had a problem with this several times when we had to run our light/sound controlboards on power supplied by long cables. They just would not work right (sometimes not at all).

>> No.2891464

>>2891390
This Dr. Quantum dude is fucking awesome. I know shit all about physics (biofag) but have an interest in it, now I can get it explained to me like the retard I am.

>> No.2891466

>>2891390

> implying that has anything to do with feynman
> implying this is not a video made by followers of the Ramtha school of light

No, i did not shit brix at all.

>> No.2891467
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2891467

>>2891378
>It's like nature has some kind of operating system telling everything what to do.

It's like everything isn't just magical bullshit!
Yeah, is like nature has some sort of rules, or "physics".

>> No.2891470
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2891470

>>2891390
>it was aware it was being watched

I also thought when people said observation effects our measurement of an electron they meant "our measuring equipment causes it to go off and do something else", not "it takes the slit we are observing"

Explain please.

>> No.2891474

>>2891470

You are correct.

>> No.2891482

>>2891378

When you turn on the electric circuit, the electrons closest to the positive end feel an attractive field and begin to move. As soon as they move the electrons behind them feel an attractive field too, and they begin to move. The electrons don't "know" they have to move, but when the field hits them they just do. The field change actually travels close to light speed, even though the electrons move quite slowly.

What is strange is bose-einstein condensates. Those will flow around their container to reach a lower potential, so it seems these guys really do "know" they have to fall.

>> No.2891486

>>2891390
"what the bleep" propoganda (you can see the poster in the background of the cartoon)

>> No.2891487

>>2891474
But the way the video explained it implied that the movement of the electron was decided BEFORE the actual interference from observation. IE. It chose a slot, then we observed it, not we observed it and that affected it's behavior.

>> No.2891491

>>2891470
yeah, it's "what the bleep do we know" propoganda, trying to convince people that there's some magic power in your eyes or something

>> No.2891496

>>2891491
Oh, OK. It just seemed pretty legit up until that observation part. I withdraw my question then.

>> No.2891547

>>2891424
>The actual electrons only travel at under a mile an hour.

That is correct, in a way..

I just did the calculation for a current of 1A through a copper wire having a cross section of 1mm^2.

The result is a drift velocity of 73.53 µm/s
which is certainly less than a mile an hour..

>> No.2891560

>>2891470
>>2891491
http://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?t=283376

>I don't need to bounce photons off electrons to detect them,. The moment electrons pass through a loop of wire, I can detect its signal, per Faraday Law.

Now it doesn't mean that, in some way, this doesn't effect the electrons. But the fallacy that I have to detect electrons ONLY via destroying its path via photon collision is faulty. It relegates the superposition principle to nothing more than an instrumentation issue, rather than something inherent to the system as indicated by QM.

Even with photon detection, one can show that even with non-destructive measurement, the system STILL collapses via QM's description. This clearly shows that it has nothing to do with the instrumentation of what we use, but rather it is an inherent property of the system.

>> No.2891562

>I turn on the light, electrons move, never a excommunication. YOU CAN'T EXPLAIN THAT
We all knew that would happen sooner or later

>> No.2891564

>>2891562
>miss-communication

>> No.2891601

Uh, there are already electrons in the cord. They is no net current because there is no voltage difference across it. When the circuit is connected, at the point of connection there is a voltage difference which causes a net current, causing the voltage difference and so current to propagate all through the circuit. At least that's how I, with my sadly classical model of circuitry, understand it.
Of course it takes time for the voltage difference to propagate, and I'm fairly sure there is some electron movement at the moment you plug the cord in. No actual wires are ideal, resistanceless wires as used in high school problems.

>> No.2891630

>>2891378

Allow me to enlighten you.

Electrons are elementary particles of the lepton class which orbit atoms in a cloud. Metals' electrons can move around through the metal easily due to the properties of metallic bonding. When electrons are imparted energy they will move and repel the electrons in front of them. The electrons behind them will be attracted to fill the empty space left, causing a sort of cascade of electrons in the path of least resistance.

Electric current is the quantity of electrons that move past a given point in a given amount of time.

Now, metals are easy for electrons to travel through. Air is a non-metal and requires large amounts of energy to force electrons into or out of its atoms (to do this is called ionization). If the voltage of the circuit is too low, as it usually is, the current simply can't move, just as in a traffic jam, no cars can move forward if the first one is stopped. Note that contrary to your ignorant preconceptions, OP, electric current is something that is present throughout a circuit, just like the current of a river.

>>It's like nature has some kind of operating system telling everything what to do.

No. It's not. An operating system would require laws of its own, which means apart from being utterly unfalsifiable, lacking in evidence and being stupefyingly retarded as a hypothesis, it gets us nowhere where knowledge is concerned. Instead of dealing with the somewhat understood laws of physics we'd have to deal with the incomprehensible 'laws of celestial debugging'. It's the same class of ideas as deities, but with a pseudoscientific skin instead of an outright religious one.

You pseudoscientific mystic types disgust me, DIAF or learn2science.

>> No.2891648

Jesus christ OP I hope this is a troll thread like all the others with stupid fucking questions.

Human race is so fucked.

>> No.2891654

>>2891424
>>2891424
>The actual electrons only travel at under a mile an hour. They force the next one forwards at almost the speed of light, though.
>electrons only travel at under a mile an hour
>force the next one forwards at almost the speed of light

O god.

>> No.2891763

>>2891654
You're confused. Each one individually moves slowly. The reaction time between one moving and the next one ahead starting to move is the speed of light.