An intuitive approach for understanding electricity

Comments · 3.6K

• AL

  @AlphaPhoenixChannel · 3 years ago (edited) · pinned

  FAQs and corrections in this comment!<br>Also: I&apos;m starting a Patreon! <a href="https://patreon.com/AlphaPhoenix">https://patreon.com/AlphaPhoenix</a><br>And a second channel! <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3GrRPAydgBn42lab2izBlg">https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3GrRPAydgBn42lab2izBlg</a><br>I&apos;ll answer some of the most common comment questions here, but in a few weeks, I&apos;m going to post an actual post-video FAQ video on the second channel including questions from the comments here, and questions from supporters on Patreon!<br><br>1) Pre-emptive answer: The distance any given electron needs to move to &quot;pool up&quot; behind a resistor is miniscule, but you can&apos;t ignore it. It&apos;s tempting to say that the moment you connect a wire, electricity is a pure wave where the electrons don&apos;t move from their starting positions, but in reality they just BARELY move from their starting positions. Imagine a big long line of people, and all the people in the back of the line take one step forward - now the front of the line is crammed SLIGHTLY closer together on average - that&apos;s kinda what&apos;s going on. The scale of all of this is really weird, so demonstrations amplify it, then the demonstrations get questioned for amplifying it too much…<br><br>2) lots of people asking about inductance. In the case of the water trough model, the inertia of the flowing water is similar to inductance, and if you wanted to make the inductance larger, you could put a waterwheel with a large moment of inertia in the channel. It would be hard to spin up, and then it would be hard to spin down once you got it going.<br><br>3) lots of commenters have correctly pointed out that my “replace all the electrons” statement was too general. I am referring to all mobile electrons, which in a metal refers to one valence electron per atom. However all of these electrons, no matter where they live in the wire (in the middle or on the surface) chug along at the same drift velocity and eventually would be “replaced” if you had a way to mark them<br><br>4)

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• CA

  @Carriersounds · 3 years ago

  as an EE grad student, this is the first time the term &quot;electron volt&quot; has made sense to me, never got why mass/energy was expressed as that unit

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• YO

  @YourOldDog · 2 years ago

  As a 77 year old Amateur Radio enthusiast I am tired to the max of taking all my theory on &quot;faith&quot; only and not a working understanding of how it all works. &nbsp;Wish we had the benefit of YouTube 50 years ago. &nbsp;Thank you for taking the time to put this all together. &nbsp;God Bless...

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• ES

  @esrefcelikcelik8789 · 1 year ago

  Electrons don&apos;t obey Ohm&apos;s &nbsp;law, but Ohm obeys &nbsp;Electrons&apos; behavior

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• LU

  @lujitsu1251 · 3 years ago

  I’m a professional electrical engineer with 30 years of experience and an adjunct physics teacher. &nbsp;I am Old. &nbsp;I think this is probably the best examples I have seen for examples of voltage and current flow. &nbsp;Excellent job and my hat is off to you.

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• RA

  @Randomkloud · 3 years ago

  &quot;Height isn&apos;t a measure of energy.&quot;<br><br>As a hydraulic engineer I took that personally.

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• FO

  @ForOrAgainstUs · 11 months ago (edited)

  I&apos;m a 6&apos;4&quot; 278lb biker looking guy, and I&apos;ve been an electrician for 178 years. I wept like a baby when I watch this video.

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• MO

  @mozkitolife5437 · 3 years ago

  It’s like having a reservoir the size of the oceans and adding a cup of water at one side and having a cup spill out the other side thousands of kilometres away. The individual water molecules don’t move very far or fast, but it’s the influence that each molecule has on the next, ie a wave, is what is carrying the electric potential effect on the other side.<br>This is a bit of an epiphany for me. Thank you, Brian. 🥲

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• MA

  @mattym8 · 2 years ago

  This should be played in the first lecture of every EE 101 class. Very well done.

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• GA

  @GankablePlayer · 2 years ago (edited)

  Not only was this explained so well, it&apos;s engaging! It&apos;s one of those rare moments when you start watching something educational and you don&apos;t want to stop because you don&apos;t feel like you&apos;re being taught a lesson, this is learning.<br><br>If education would stop focusing on learning how to solve equations but rather how &nbsp;to apply an equation as a solution to a problem. People would be more success remembering or becoming interested.

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• TH

  @threethrushes · 2 years ago

  I&apos;m an electron, and you right: we don&apos;t learn Ohm&apos;s law at electron school, and we don&apos;t even do maths.<br><br>We just exist, scrunch up, flow, oscillate, but mostly we be chill.

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• HA

  @hazeluzzell · 1 year ago

  Loved this. I’m an 84 year old female who got thrown out of physics class.. Where were you in 1956? I’m watching this with a huge smile on my face!

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