What is the speed of electricity?
An electric current is a flow of electric
charge in one direction.
Since we live in an electrically interconnect
world, we could be easily lead to believe
that electrons travel instantaneously or,
a bit more accurate, at the speed of light.
But that's not what happens here.
In this cable, while energy travels at almost
the speed of light, the free electrons that
transmit that energy travel really slowly.
We're talking millimeters per hour.
Here is a live footage of electrons moving
through a wire.
When you flip the switch the lights turn on
very quickly, almost instantaneously.
But the electrons inside the wire will move
just a tiny tiny bit.
It's almost as if you were to fill up a pipe
with marbles.
If we push another marble into a filled pipe,
then one marble would have to exit the other
end.
The marbles moved a little bit while the energy
transfer was instantaneous.
And this is how electric current works.
The electrons travel very slowly, but the
energy travels fast.
