How does electricity work?

[Jimbo]

Does an electron flow around atoms, like a stream of water moving around rocks?

 

Or

 

Does an electron get bumped into the next atom, then another electron gets bumped out of that atom and so on in a chain reaction?

[5614]

What happens is that one side of the circuit is giving a potential difference relative to the other side of the circuit.

 

What this means is that electrons are attracted to one side of the circuit and repelled from the other side of the circuit.

 

On top of that you have a chain like effect. What I mean by this is that at first the 1st electron is attracted towards the battery, then electrons nearby see a positive space where that electron just was, electrons (negative) are attracted into that space, where they just were is a positive area which attracts the 3rd electron and so on and so on.

 

The way to think of a metal is that you have all of your nuclei in a lump. And then you have a sea of electrons surrounding these nuclei on every side and in between them.

 

So you have your nuclei and then everywhere else is electrons, referred to as a 'sea of electrons'. Each electron doesn't belong to a specific nuclei, so your 2nd idea doesn't really work... I suppose your 1st idea about the water/rocks being electrons/nuclei works.

 

So the answer would be your 1st idea.

[insane_alien]

closer to the second but a mixture of both

[5614]

I disagree.

 

I think it's closer to the 1st.

 

Each electron is not assigned to a specific nuclei so you can't say it is "bumped" from one to the next as it never has an original nuclei nor a new nuclei, it just has a an old position and a new position.

 

insane_alien why do you think it's the 2nd idea?

[insane_alien]

i don't think its completely the second idea. its just that when an electron is shoved in one end of the wire electrons are "bumped" along the wire until another electron pops out the other side kind of like water in a pipe. i know that electrons are constantly randomly switching atoms

[5614]

I prefer the image of an electron going in one end and then this repels the nearest electron which moves up repelling the next one etc. etc. and this creates a flow along the wire.

 

I spose I don't like the "bump" as there isn't really any physical contact and I don't like "into the next atom" as it never really belonged to a specific atom and once it is repelled/bumped it still doesn't belong to an electron.

 

It is not being "bump[ed]" and it's not going "into the next atom"... more the sea of electrons are being repelled/attracted to one end of the other.

[insane_alien]

yeah i know theres no physical contact but before i properly understood the process bumped was good enough so i still use it. old habits die hard.