What is the speed if electric current?

Answer 1

The speed of flowing charges inside wires is very low, roughly centimeters per minute in copper wires. Also it is proportional to current, so the more amperes you have, the faster is the flow. For zero current, the charges stop drifting entirely.

Also, for DC circuits, the charges do flow forwards in the circuit (moving like a conveyor belt,) but in AC circuits the charges wiggle back and forth over a very tiny distance.

At the same time, the wave-speed of electrical energy is very high; almost the speed of light. Analogy: if you turn one pulley of a conveyor belt, the distant pulley turns almost instantly. Or if you pull on a long chain, the other end of the chain moves almost instantly, while each individual link of the chain only moves slowly. In other words, the "wave of current startup" is fast, and the "wave of current halting" is fast. But the actual flowing of the movable charges within the wire has little to do with this wave speed, and that flow is very slow.

Answer 2

Three speeds can be distinguished here.

1. The random speed of individual electrons (whether there is a current or not) is about 1/5 the speed of light. Not entirely sure about this one; it would also depend on the temperature.

2. The systematic movement of electrons when there is a current (i.e., more electrons move in one direction than in the other) is extremely slow; usually a fraction of a millimeter per second.

3. The speed of the current itself is typically about 2/3 the speed that light has in a vacuum, or about 200,000 km/sec. Note that this is NOT the speed of individual electrons; rather, energy is transferred from one electron to the next. This IS the speed at which a signal can be propagated, for example in a network cable.

Answer 3

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!

Answer 4

An electrical signal will typically travel at about 2/3 the speed of light in a vacuum (about 200,000 km/second). The average velocity of the electrons, on the other hand (the drift velocity) is less than one millimeter per second for a typical current.

Answer 5

The speed of an electric current can vary depending on the material it's passing through and the conditions, but it typically ranges from around 0.1 meters per second to the speed of light (300,000 kilometers per second) in a vacuum.

Answer 6

The electric current is real speed is 297841.8 km/s