Wednesday, March 25, 2015

Electricity: speed of electron flow


It might seem a silly question but the other day I was talking to some friends and we came up with this question :


When you plug your charger into the network, you are getting the electric potential to get electrons flowing. However, this potential is created in the power station and is distributed throughout the network.


And we wondered whether the electrons flowing come from the network, from the cables made of "conductors" (current is conserved due to mass conservation). And if they do, what's the speed of the electron flow?



Is my phone getting charged from electrons of the metals? I'm sure there is something wrong in this reasoning, but what? Thanks a lot!




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