RE: Inductance and the acceleration of charge

["Tesla list" <tesla@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Original poster: "alfred erpel" <alfred@xxxxxxxxx>


Hi Gerry,

        There is a movement of electrons I have read recently but can't
remember where (possibly Science News?), but as you have pointed out, it is
astounding orders of magnitude slower than .95c.  Charge isn't "traveling"
as Jared says below.  It seems a better analogy is the mechanical toy where
steel spheres are hanging together touching each other on parallel pendulums
and you drop one, and at the other end another steel ball flys out while the
rest stay stationary.  This isn't a perfect analogy since the charge does
travel and eventually the original electrons will exit too.

Regards,

Al Erpel


> Original poster: "Gerry  Reynolds" <gerryreynolds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>
> Hi Jared,
>
> I'm wondering if there may be a misconception about how
> electricity travels in the wire.  Given a segment of wire
> that is part of a complete circuit and suddenly energized at
> one end so that an electron enters that end of the wire, a
> certain time later an electron will exit the other end of the
> wire. The propagation time from one end to the other end is
> indead close to the speed of light (0.95C for copper, I
> think).  However, the electron that exits is not the same
> electron that entered the wire.  If one were to somehow tag
> the entering electrons, one would find that their propagation
> is much much slower than C.  The thing that is propagating
> thru the wire at 0.95C is not the electrons but is the
> electrostatic force caused by the electrons entering the
> wire.  At least this is what I believe I was taught. Someone
> more knowledgable can correct or fill in the details.
>
> Gerry R.
>
>
>
> >Original poster: "Jared Dwarshuis" <jdwarshuis@xxxxxxxxx>
> >
> >Charge is traveling in a circular path at the fixed velocity of C.
> >The charge has a relativistic mass. As we increase the radius of our
> >inductor for a given wire length, we increase the moment of inertia.
> >As the system inertia increases so does the inductance.
> >
> >Sincerely: Jared Dwarshuis, Larry Morris