Because the speed of light’s electricity is very high, the effect of electricity is immediate as soon as you come into contact with it. The speed of electricity is quite high, although the electrons move quite slowly. Now, speaking of the speed of electricity, we could refer to two things.
Electricity travels at a maximum speed of around 270,000 km/s. This is roughly 90% of the speed of light. Electricity is not light and cannot move as fast as light, because electrons have mass. However, electricity can approach the speed of light relatively easily. The speed of electrical current depends on the material it travels through.
In other words, the speed of the charge is proportional to the magnitude of the current; low current means slow charging flow, high current means high speed. Even though the current is a very slow flow of electric charge, we can’t know the actual flow unless we first know the thickness of the wire and the *value* (amps) of the current in the wire. The speed of the current Since nothing is visually moving as the ocean of charge flows, we cannot measure its speed with the naked eye.
Electricity Passes Easily Through Metal Wires
I assume that we are referring to the current of electric charge that passes through a metal wire, for example, through the power cord of a lamp. As discussed above, what physically travels through the wires is not electricity, but negatively charged electrons. The free electrons inside the wire, left to itself, take the force from the external electric field and accelerate in the direction of the field (in fact, in the opposite direction, since the electrons are negatively charged).
When others move and bounce, an electrical charge is created. When an electron is pushed into a wire, the movement of the electric field in and around the wire moves at the speed of light in the dielectric around the wire. If you make an electron move when you turn on the switch, the electrons move throughout the wire, even if the wire is miles long.
When the switch is activated, all the electrons in the line move, even if the wire is several miles long. This “guiding light” along the wires causes the electricity to slow down a bit. When we close the circuit, the electric field instantly sets up at the speed of the electromagnetic wave, which causes the electrons to drift through the circuit. When a constant voltage is applied, the electron drift velocity will increase in proportion to the strength of the electric field.
Common Approximations of Electron Movement
The drift velocity, the average speed at which electrons move in a conductor under the influence of an electric field, is about 1 mm per second. As stated earlier, although the speed of electrical current transmission is approximately equal to the speed of light, the electrons inside an electromagnetic wave can only move a few millimeters per second. In everyday electrical and electronic devices, signals travel as electromagnetic waves, typically at 50-99% the speed of light, while the electrons themselves travel much more slowly; see drift velocity and electron mobility.
Rather, the signal propagating through an electrical cable involves the interaction of both the fluctuations of the electromagnetic field (the wave) and the free electrons within. A wire left to itself carries no electrical signal, so the speed of individual electrons moving randomly is only a description of the heat in the wire, not the electric current. Because energy and information are carried by fluctuations in an external electric field, energy and information also travel through an electrical wire much faster than any single electron.
Electromagnetic fields start in conductors and travel through space at the speed of light (depending on the material propagating). The magnetic component of the electromagnetic field is considered to be in phase with the current, and the electrical component is considered to be in phase with the voltage. At any point in space, the electric field does not correspond to the current state of electrical energy flow, but to the flow state of the previous moment.
How Electrical Energy May Otherwise Propagate
Electrical energy also propagates through compression waves, with the waves propagating through electrons inside the metal wire. Electricity does not travel through wires like sound does through air, but always travels in space outside the wires. When a wire is connected to a battery or outlet, it’s like applying pressure to one end of a pipe, but instead of water, you’re applying an electric field to the copper wire.
The electrical force focuses their energy in one direction, causing the speed of the electricity coming out of the conductor to become much faster. In alternating current (AC), the current changes direction about 50-60 times per second, and most of the electrons involved never leave the wire. The speed at which electricity travels depends on the shape of the two wires that run from Mars to Earth.
The effective speed of a single electron is the number of nanometers per second that an electron travels in a straight line between collisions. Nothing can move faster than 300,000 kilometers per second (186,000 miles per second). In Albert Einstein’s theory of special relativity, it is known that no known object can move faster than 300. Only massless particles, including the photons that make up light, can move at that speed.
This energy travels as electromagnetic waves at the speed of light, which is 670,616,629 miles per hour, or 1 or 300 million meters per second.2 However, the electrons themselves inside the wave move more slowly. While Mr. Electric (r) cannot tell you how fast Superman can fly, we can confirm that electromagnetic waves of electricity travel at nearly the speed of light, which is 670,616,629 miles per hour.