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by bandrami 1054 days ago
That's not how electric current works. It's more like a wave in an ocean. A wave may travel from Hawaii to California but no actual water molecule moves that far (or even very much at all). Electric current is a wave of excitation of electrons, which is what moves at the speed of light. The actual drift of individual electrons in the current is much, much slower (and IIRC in a superconductor is zero).
1 comments
stoniejohnson 1054 days ago
Veritasium has a cool video on this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHIhgxav9LY&pp=ygUVdmVyaXRhc...

link
s1artibartfast 1053 days ago
Interesting video, So it is sad that they did such a terrible job explaining why the the answer is 1/c.

It makes it sound like the bulb is getting full power at 1/c, when it wont. As I understand from further reading, the power will build up over time, and that time depends highly on the shape of your circuit.

link