Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by JohnFen 875 days ago
So, a bit like how the conventional depiction of electric flow is in the opposite direction of the actual electron travel?

It doesn't matter in terms of the math (in the vast majority of situations), so while the conventional idea of electric flow is incorrect, we keep it anyway.

1 comments

I think it is closer to the conventional view of current as the travel of electrons down a wire.

Current moves far faster than electrons. it is more similar to a wave in the ocean with the electrons being the water molecule.

As a result, and counterintuitively for most, the speed of electrons will give you a completely wrong answer for when a light will turn on after you flip a switch.

> Current moves far faster than electrons.

Current is the movement of charges. It cannot “move” faster than said charges. (Or, perhaps, you meant the electomotive force that makes the electrons move along the wire, then sure, that thing spreads pretty quickly.)

yes, the EM force, Field, or whatever it is called. I still struggle, mostly because I was taught a fundamentally flawed model for how electrical power is transmitted.
Current is about the throughput of electrical charge at a specific point of an electrical circuit, while what you're describing seems to be about the latency or the speed of electricity.