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How does electrical current flow?

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Anonymous

7y ago
Updated: 8/28/2021

In a conducting wire, an electrical current will flow at about 2/3 the speed of light in a vacuum, or 200,000 km/sec. Note that the speed of the individual electrons is quite a bit less, and the average speed of the electrons is less than a millimeter per second. It is the CURRENT that advances at 2/3 the speed of light, not the electrons.

Answer

The free electrons in a metal conductor move in random directions at a very high speed -a little less than the speed of light. This is the case whether or not a potential difference (or an electric field) is applied across the ends of that conductor.

However, when a potential difference is applied, these randomly-moving electrons are slightly biased towards the positive end of the conductor. So if a randomly moving but unbiased electron would normally end up at, say, point A, within the conductor then, under an electric field, it would end up at point B instead -where point B is typically less than the diameter of an atom away from point A. So individual electrons move along a conductor at speeds in the order of millimetres per hour.

As current is defined as a drift of electric charge (free electrons, in the case of metal conductors), this means that the velocity of this drift and, therefore, an electric current is very, v-e-r-y, slow! However, the effect of that current is felt immediately along the whole length of that conductor in much the same way that a number of railway wagons respond, practically instantaneously, to a small movement of just one of those wagons.

Electric current is so slow that, in practical terms, it's unlikely that an individual electron will complete its journey through the filament of a flashlight within the lifetime of its battery!

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Joanne Skiles

Lvl 10
4y ago

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