How Electricity Actually Works

Comments · 25K

• SI

  @SirPembertonS.Crevalius · 4 years ago (edited)

  Respect for admiting to some mistakes. It's refreshing to see someone both rationally defend their side and also admit to some mistakes and fix said mistakes.

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• PZ

  @PzMcQunn · 2 years ago (edited)

  As an electron working in the field, I'm glad we're finally getting the recognition we deserve.

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• EL

  @ElectroBOOM · 4 years ago (edited)

  This was a greatly detailed video and I think we are pretty much on the same page! Thanks for the shoutout and going through the trouble of clarification.<br>P.S. by the way, the resistor in your experiment didn&apos;t quite match the lien impedance, other you would get half your supply voltage right away. But I mean with such small capacitance and inductances, the probing itself could d have added some parasitic components to the lines.<br>PPS: Like I said above &quot;pretty much on the same page&quot;! It is a complex subject, and I think some nuances could have been addressed better. Maybe Derek and I could sit together and react to nuances to clarify things!

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• KA

  @karen23826 · 1 year ago

  Growing up, I had a great demonstration of electric fields at work. &nbsp;My family had been sailing our catamaran on a lake most of the morning and early afternoon. &nbsp;We noted a storm was starting to develop in the mountains across the lake, so we quickly got ashore and began breaking down the cat. &nbsp;As we were breaking down it had become a full fledged thunderstorm and you could see lightning striking. &nbsp;Well my dad was coiling the wire cables that stabilize the mast. &nbsp;As he was coiling them lightning struck only a few miles off and he got a mild shock from the coiled wire responding to that electric field. &nbsp;He’s an electrical engineer and he said he should have known better he just wasn’t thinking in those terms. &nbsp;<br><br>All of it stuck in my memory because I was in awe that lightning from several miles away could induce enough current to shock my dad. (He was fine, just startled him).<br><br>Ever since, the wireless charging and the transformers make a kind of sense to me. &nbsp;It’s easy to talk about electricity like water. &nbsp;But the difference is the electrons aren’t moving much. &nbsp;It’s the fields doing the work which is why transformers and similar devices are able to work. <br><br>Anyway, thought I’d share the memory.

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• GR

  @GruntyGame · 4 years ago

  This was a good revisit. After watching the original I didn’t feel like it made enough sense. It wasn’t until Alpha Phoenix posted his experiment that I understood the point you were actually aiming for.

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• LU

  @lucazsy · 4 years ago

  What a great time to be alive. Hundreds of years ago this discussion would be hold in books or university talks that were unavailable to the vast majority of society. Now, it is being done publically, everyone with access to internet can live this experience. It is amazing and it makes me feel like one 17th century student watching a heated physics debate.

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• SE

  @se7engold · 4 years ago

  This… this is what science is all about. Thought experiment, theory, peer review, experiment. Well done everyone.

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• MO

  @MonkeyGo911 · 1 year ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oI_X2cMHNe0&amp;t=34">0:34</a> &nbsp;naughty Mr Veritidium

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• JO

  @johnthompson2956 · 4 years ago

  Electricity drama continues.

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• 78

  @780joey · 2 years ago

  As an electrician working in the field, I can confidently say: This is above my pay grade.

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• AL

  @AlphaPhoenixChannel · 4 years ago

  Fantastic revisit! The animations and the simulations were spot-on, and great at showing the difference between the transient “first-second” effect, and the steady-state “rest of time” behavior. The whole “expanding loop of current” thing is a great way to phrase it, because after that poynting loop expands to match the actual physical loop of wire, then stuff starts to behave normally and all of the power is transmitted around the loop very close to the wire.<br><br>I still hold that for this simple circuit, turning on a lightbulb with wires much smaller around than they are long, the effect of surface charge vs internal charge is negligible, so you can ignore any skin-effect stuff and say that “mobile” electrons are indeed pushing on other “mobile” electrons using their fields, but I totally agree that that’s a simplification, just a simplification that makes the intuition a lot easier.<br><br>I also need to do some math about how far the average “electron” is displaced in order to build the initial charge distribution around some typical circuit elements - axial flow is the only way I understand those charge distributions getting built, and this whole endeavor has made me think hard about what that means. Someday when I think I understand it better I’ll edit up my pt.2 response video - thanks for the shoutout! I’ve got a great experiment in the works to show the “expanding poynting loop” 😁

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• LO

  @longbowrocks · 11 months ago (edited)

  &quot;The clue that this is a <i>thought experiment</i> is the two light seconds of superconducting wire that stretch out into space.&quot;<br><br>I love that little jab. 😂

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