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by soheil 1650 days ago
Technically there is a very small current that flows through the circuit almost right away due to capacitance and inductance properties of the circuit, so Derek was right technically. That current won't be enough to turn on the light bulb. The rest of the current that actually turns on the light bulb takes some time to reach the bulb because the wire is so long and electrons travel with the speed of light along the wire [0].

[0] actually electrons don't move that much, instead electrons pushing against each other on the wire cause a ripple, it is this wave that moves along the wire and turns on the bulb.