Re: electrical units

["Tesla list" <tesla-at-pupman-dot-com>]

Original poster: "Dr. Resonance" <resonance-at-jvlnet-dot-com> 


The electrons don't travel very fast --- the wave of energy does.

Imagine a few sticks of wood in the ocean.  The sticks move very slowly to
shore.  The energy (ocean waves in this case) travels very rapidly to shore.
Think of the electrons as the stick of wood.  The waves as the energy
wave --- travel at a much higher speed than the stick itself.

Another example:   A stack of 6 pool balls in a straight line all touching
each other.  A cueball is shot rolling slowly toward the stack.  The energy
is absorbed by the stack and rapidly passed to the last ball where it jumps
off rapidly as transferred energy into the last ball.  If the slowly rolling
cueball would travel the distance of the length of the 6 stacked ball it
might take a few seconds for it to pass the stack of 6.  If it hits the
first ball the energy transfer happens very rapidly, ie, in milliseconds.

In quantum physics the electron may disappear (pair annilalation) in one
spot and reappear in another location (pair production).  It's only slow
when it's traveling by itself --- like the slowly rolling cueball.

Hope this helps.

Dr. Resonance

 >    Seriously, though, I always wondered, what is electricity, really? I
have
 > heard that it travels at the speed of light...but that is impossible if I
 > understand Einstein's theories...is it an electron mooving from point a to
 > b? Electrons are  particles, even the Fermi accelerator can't  get an
 > electron to moove that fast, I just don't see how electricity can moove
 > that fast.
 > - Philosophical Phil Brinkman
 >
 >
 >