Ad on a DC system, the electrons move dozens of times slower than a person walking. They also don’t get anywhere, and power is still delivered.
Just vibing
Submitted 3 weeks ago by deHaga@feddit.uk to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://feddit.uk/pictrs/image/23047904-08ec-48fe-ad3c-4b4a0bd8bf16.webp
Comments
marcos@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Admetus@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
It’s fun to calculate that from a socket to a light bulb it may take something close to a few hours for one electron to get to the bulb, but even then that’s an average. Some electrons don’t even get to the light bulb ever.
marcos@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
IMO, the more interesting thing is how they are all always moving at a large fraction of the speed of light, but over any large distance, they are that slow.
Things never cancel each other so well on the macroscopic world.
AE5NE@lemmy.radio 3 weeks ago
Hell of a lot of electrons coming out and going in though
dalekcaan@feddit.nl 2 weeks ago
It’s kind of shocking, after a lifetime of assuming electrons whiz through wires at the speed of light, to find out they move so slowly that the speed at which they move is referred to as “electron drift.”
Dupelet@piefed.social 2 weeks ago
Guess I’m in today’s lucky 10000
Agent641@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
In an AC system, the pedastal fan in your bedroom is electromagnetically coupled to the turbine at the coal/gas/hydro/nuc power station. They instantly and directly influence each other, and they both are spinning in tandem like two wheels on a car connected by an axel. Slowing the rotation of the fan with your hand technically increases the torque of the turbine, if only by an immeasurably small amount.
justastranger@sh.itjust.works 2 weeks ago
Fun Fact: An improperly shielded (or old and deteriorating) fan can be influenced by stray electromagnetic radiation. They’ll pick up AM radio signals occasionally, creating an off tone in the fan noise that sounds like a person talking faintly on the other side of the fan.
_stranger_@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
ForestGreenGhost@literature.cafe 2 weeks ago
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
AC motors are more powerful but also more noisy. You need that power in your kitchen mixer but you need quiet in a fan. Modern WC rooms now have a DC fan.
FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
The balls in the middle of newtons cradle don’t move either.
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 3 weeks ago
Newton’s cradle sounds like a kinky sex move, which is ironic since Newton was likely a virgin.
lessthanluigi@lemmy.sdf.org 3 weeks ago
In certain kink circles, Newton’s cradle IS a kinky sex move!
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Yeah. Sort of like holding two ends of a chain and dragging it back and forth. Even if the chain isn’t traveling the full length, it’s still moving and you could still extract power from the system if you attached something to the middle of the chain.
LouNeko@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Whats crazier is that in direct current individual electrons don’t travel at the speed of light through the conductor, but only at roughly 1cm/s.
Or, that thanks to the “skin effect” the current actualy travels in a very thin layer below the outside surface of cconductor. Most of the conductor doesn’t transfer power but only maintains the magnetic field to keep the current flowing.
janus2@lemmy.zip 3 weeks ago
dukatos@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
No, skin effect only occurs on higher frequencies. That is why coaxial cabel is invented. But then they realized the energy in coax transfers in a completely different way.
Tattorack@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That’s why you don’t have one thick copper cable but multiple thin ones.
meekah@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
That’s usually just for flexibility of the cable as far as I understand. Power wires inside the walls are one thick copper wire (or rather three for live, neutral and ground)
AE5NE@lemmy.radio 3 weeks ago
imagine a bicycle chain between two sprockets, if you crank it foward and back like 1 inch, over and over again, you can clearly transmit power without the chain links going much of anywhere
graymess@hexbear.net 3 weeks ago
Shit, that’s an amazing analogy.
AE5NE@lemmy.radio 2 weeks ago
Easy to fit capacitance, inductance, and resistance into as well
funkless_eck@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
why is everyone in this thread telling me to imagine something
DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 3 weeks ago
Because imagination is everything- probably Einstein
Thorry@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
So imagine a bus…
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Does it leave every 21 frames?
TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 3 weeks ago
when you touch something we never actually touch it is all just fields interacting all the way down
5715@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
just the
tipfieldsHazmatastic@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
People are really just mobile energy nets holding other energy in. What if the fields of our energy nets directly influenced each other? Jk… unless…?
ArseAssassin@sopuli.xyz 3 weeks ago
My power company is charging me that much for nothing but vibes?!
tetris11@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
They’re giving you excitations
Iron_Lynx@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Ooh, exciting!
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 3 weeks ago
The microwave doesn’t heat your food, it just vibrates the water.
Quibblekrust@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
Heat is kinetic energy and the water is part of your food, so the microwave does heat your food.
YiddishMcSquidish@lemmy.today 2 weeks ago
Thank you for explaining the joke
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 2 weeks ago
Steam engine pistons also move back and forth less than a meter at a time, and still could push trains a million kilometers in the forward direction. It’s that they’re pushing right while moving right and left when moving left. That’s like when current and voltage is in phase, delivering positive net power. Meanwhile, something that pulls left when moving right is consuming power.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
Elections merely transfer the power, like a drive shaft or cogs.
Even with DC you need a loop.
Carbon fuel one-use mentality where you burn your supply (chemically stored energy) doesn’t apply, to non-rechargeable batteries make it seem so.
mholiv@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s even crazier than that. It’s not even the electrons at the “leading edge” it’s the EM field they create along the entirety of the wires that actually bring the power.
And the follow-up with a physical experiment after the first video started a huge drama. youtu.be/oI_X2cMHNe0
calamityjanitor@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
God I hate that video, he explains everything so badly to the point of completely misinforming viewers. He’s talking about a special situation of AC current, but uses DC in the thought experiment. He makes it seem as if the field travels to the load in a direct path and the wires don’t matter. No, the EM field is completely based on the wire.
Evil_Shrubbery@thelemmy.club 3 weeks ago
No, the leading edge of the mechanical transfer of power - I was trying to make a faux comparison that electrons would be the inside of the shaft/cog & the fields the leading edges.
I mangled the comparison, should have given up on it. Vibes are hard to compare with anything non-vibes.
MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 2 weeks ago
non-rechargeable batteries
Yeah, why are they still a thing? Recharchable have all the advantages but more.
sobchak@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
Low self discharge. Good for ultra low power devices like remote controls or lights only used on occasion where a rechargeable battery would self discharge faster than the rate of actual use.
MintyFresh@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
It’s just the one electron… Allegedly
Agent641@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Mum says it’s my turn to use the electron!
tetris11@feddit.uk 2 weeks ago
Can you imagine being the guy who just, like, claps his hands together and kills the electron, snuffing out all existence
this@sh.itjust.works 3 weeks ago
The voltage(electrical equivalent of force) is what travels.
It’s analagous to pushing something away from you with a really really really long stick, then pulling it back again. The stick didn’t move much but you still affected something far away.
9point6@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
That movement is still energy
Build a circuit to make use of that et voilà
Friction makes heat. Same thing really
Phantom_Engineer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Imagine an old-timey saw with a lumberjack on each side, pulling it back and forth across the tree. The saw just goes back and forth, but effective work gets done.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
The electrons don’t move very quickly either. And it’s current times voltage that delivers power. Simplifying to a single harmonic (pure sine voltage source and a linear RLC load), you need to know the product of the voltage’s and current’s amplitude (in VA, voltamps) but also their power factor or cos φ, the cosine of phase beetween them. If the cosine is zero, it’s a purely reactive (L/C) load with a phase of ±90° and no power is consumed overall. If the cosine is negative, power is actually being generated by the device you’re measuring (for instance, old elevators and escalators with synchronous motors are actually delivering power into mains when enough people are travelling down).
Morphit@feddit.uk 3 weeks ago
Amps are not joules / second;- that would be Watts. Amps = Coulombs / second, and Volts = Joules / Coulomb. That’s why multiplying them gives you power in Watts.
That’s true instantaneously but as you say, if the current or voltage are alternating then you can’t just use the AC current and voltage to get real power like you can with DC.
ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
You are correct, that was a mistake.
However, although symbols of quantities named after scientists (V, A, W, C, J, Ω, H, F, T, Hz, S, K, N, Pa, Bq, R, Ci) are uppercase, they are lowercase when written out (volt, amp(ère), watt, coulomb, joule, ohm, henry, farad, tesla, hertz, siemens, kelvin, newton, pascal, becquerel, roentgen, curie) to differentiate them from the surnames. And yes, that’s why the Claude Litre hoax was created.
pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
DacoTaco@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
Fyi, it isnt fully correct and a lot of electricity related channels were a bit annoyed by it. But overal its a good video hehe
pruwybn@discuss.tchncs.de 3 weeks ago
Do you happen to know a good video about the issues?
Sanctus@anarchist.nexus 3 weeks ago
Theres a gnarly your mom joke in here somewhere
draco_aeneus@mander.xyz 2 weeks ago
Kind of like how a piston in an engine also kinda just “shakes about” (because of explosions or steam or whatever) and yet delivers a lot of power.
5715@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
In an tidal earth system, the water doesn’t even go anywhere, it simply vibrates back and forth
ivanafterall@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
So you’re admitting that AI data centers vibe pretty hard? Your words!
pedz@lemmy.ca 2 weeks ago
Technically, computers are running on DC. The PSU is fed by AC but its sole purpose is to convert all the power the computer needs to DC. It’s possible to only use DC to power computers and it’s probably/apparently more efficient.
Midnitte@beehaw.org 3 weeks ago
Presumably the vibrating back and forth causes a net negative charge to propagate down the line?
NannerBanner@literature.cafe 3 weeks ago
There’s a neat video by smarter everyday (and a bunch of back and forths among youtubers, including electroboom) where they show it and argue about it, but the power is actually transmitted through the electrical fields ‘outside’ of the wires.
Imagine a loop of electrical wire that is 300,000km long. Your switch is at point A, and the light bulb is at point b, halfway along the wire. If the energy truly ‘propagated down the line’ it would take half of a second for the light bulb to turn on when you flipped your switch to complete the circuit. Interestingly, if you make the loop so that points A and b are closer than the lines maximum possibility (or, in other words if you imagine the loop as a 0, the points are at the left and right of the 0 instead of the top and bottom), then the light bulb turns on based on how far apart the points are, not the distance of electrical line between them.
bigfish@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 weeks ago
Nah. Power is just the potential to do work. Clever electrical engineering just takes advantage of the teensy pushes and pulls to do that work. Like pushing a swing, I don’t move but my kid sure can go high when I apply those pushes and pulls at the right time.
this_1_is_mine@lemmy.ml 3 weeks ago
Until you jump off Then The Things get spicy…
Dadifer@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
This is analogous to saying, the blades on a wind turbine don’t go anywhere, they simply spin, and yet power is created.
Lauchmelder@feddit.org 3 weeks ago
You’re just wiggling the saw back and forth, yet the log is eventually halved
credo@lemmy.world 3 weeks ago
The washing machine just spins left then right, left then right, and the clothes come out clean.