Here's a picture of volts, amps, and resistance I posted earlier. Everybody "in the know" that I show it to tends to say, "That's cute. And that's the idea, too." But note how it includes the thought of something "piling up" or "getting stuck" at the entrance to a resistor:



We need a picture to go with the formulas that doesn't mislead. So either this picture (good as it is) is out, or we need to admit that something really does pile up at the entrance to a resistor. Personally, I find it hard to believe that an image that is so right is so many other ways could be so utterly wrong in another.

And what about quotes like this one, from a reputable text called, Electronics: What Everyone Should Know by Mooers and Davis. They're talking about the rush of electrons exiting a triode in a amplifier:



Is that description just plain wrong? Sure goes nicely with the cartoon above...

 

The reason I have trouble with that particular assertion is that I've read in many places that a coulomb's worth of electrons (6.28x10^18) is about the size of a grain of salt; and that moving that many electrons past a point every second yields just one amp of current; and that a deficiency of that number of electrons in one spot versus another represents an electrical potential of just one volt. I'm having trouble seeing how you get a "trillion pounds of force" out of any of those images.

I've already explained to you that a deficiency of of (6.28x10^18) electrons is NOT one volt, except in the ridiculous example given in the reference you quoted. I tried to explain how and why you misinterpreted what they said. You don't see how those charges can make a trillion pounds of force because you don't understand the most basic formula of electomagnetism, that is Coulomb's law. This is trivial stuff, but you don't understand it.

That is why I need to drop out of the thread and why I'm not addressing the other question in your last post. You are just too far away from being able to make full sense of this. At least it appears that way to me, and I don't have the time to devote to this at the pace you are making progress. I do see you making progress though, which is good, and I sincerely wish you good luck and expect you will get there eventually if you keep trying.

 

You don't see how those charges can make a trillion pounds of force because you don't understand the most basic formula of electomagnetism, that is Coulomb's law. This is trivial stuff, but you don't understand it.

It's true I don't understand your assertion here. Say I have a 6-volt battery rated at 20 amp-hours. That means it is capable of pushing one coulomb's worth of electrons (6.28*10^18) out the negative terminal, every second, for 20 hours. Yes? And yet it seems (to me) you're saying this battery (with so many crammed-up electrons desperately trying to get away from each other inside it) must have trillions of pounds of repulsive force pushing outward on the casing. See why I don't get it? I can plug in the numbers and do the arithmetic; but I have no reasonable picture to go with the result. The trillions of pounds of pressure inside that battery, assuming they're really there, must be offset by something -- but that something isn't mentioned in the formula (as far as I can tell).

That is why... I'm not addressing the other question in your last post.

Again, I'm sorry to hear that. I think if we could agree on a consistent picture of what's happening -- even with just the battery described immediately above -- it would lead to faster progress.

 

This is why it's bad to use a water analogy for current. Water molecules are attractive to each other.

When you put a drop of water on your desktop, it will stay together. Also it takes a confined VOLUME to control the flow of water.

Electrons are repulsive and it takes a confined SURFACE to control the flow.

Electrons can only have one layer of the net. They do not pile up. There is NO extra electrons.

The extra electrons on the dense area come from the less dense area.

 

But it works for beginners, which is why I brought it up.

In practical tern no one thinks in coulombs, It is a physics measurement, not generally used in electronics.

Think volts, amps, ohms, watts. More advanced units are farads and henrys. Even more advanced is things like decibels.

Many of us are experts through experience, we deal with what is important. When I think of current, I visualize flow, not the particles doing the moving (hence the water analogy).

And what d0 you think an ion is BR? It is a shortage or surplus of electrons in matter. So is static electricity. You really have some odd and incorrect models you work from.

Ions can create plasma, which causes many gases to glow. They can be created both chemically (fire) or electrically (neon bulbs).

Voltage is pressure. Water doesn't compress at the nozzle of a sprayer. The pressure is the same at both ends of the hose. It pushes the water out of the sprayer, where the pressure is effectively zero in free fall. This pressure conversion is kinetic energy released. With a resistor the energy conversion is heat.

Conversion is a common concept used in electronics extensively. Energy can not be created or destroyed, but it can be converted from on form to another.

 

This is why it's bad to use a water analogy for current. Water molecules are attractive to each other. When you put a drop of water on your desktop, it will stay together. Also it takes a confined VOLUME to control the flow of water. Electrons are repulsive and it takes a confined SURFACE to control the flow.

I agree the water analogy has its shortcomings. I haven't been using it here; that was Lool.

Electrons can only have one layer of the net. They do not pile up.

Only one layer. Got it. Can we call them "surface charges" like Sherwood and Chabay?

There is NO extra electrons.

So in a copper wire, then, each proton will always have one and only one electron in the outermost shell?

The extra electrons on the dense area come from the less dense area.

You can't say, "there is no extra electrons" in one sentence and then say "the extra electrons on the dense area come from..." in the next sentence and hope to be easily understood

But if I've deciphered that statement correctly, you're talking about something like this, where the number of electrons on the net is fixed but the arrangement is flexible:


In this example we have:

1. The normal distribution of electrons on the left;
2. An area of decompression in the center; and
3. An area of compression on the right.

Is that closer to what you're thinking?

If yes, can we say that Area 2 is "positively charged" and that Area 3 is "negatively charged"? And if so, can we say that the difference between the charge in Areas 2 and 3 constitutes an electrical potential/voltage?

 

This, it seems to me, is the key question. I'm told that in this circuit...


...6.28x10^18 electrons are being pushed out of the bottom of the battery every second: that's the definition of an amp of current.

Now could someone, anyone*, please describe to me the rest of the journey that those electrons take? I'm particularly interested in what happens to them at Points A and B.

[*Note to BR-549: you can ignore this question since the model you're describing, at least as far as I understand it, is different from the start. I don't even think the above definition of "amp" is consistent with your model.]

 

I would define an ion as having three properties.

1. Moving.
2. Multi-particle.
3. Has net charge.

As you say, I disagree with most of modern science. The reason for this is simple.

An electron does not orbit a proton. When you realize what a charge particle is, it's very easy to see why modern science thinks it does. But it does not.

All lab evidence says this can't happen. So modern science invents new theories, to ignore evidence.

They justify this by saying that several constants that we have never seen to vary,......vary all the time.

This has brought us to the ridicules logic that the sky is really red............it only looks blue when we look at it.

And of course quantum foam. Left over from the big bang and the source of all...................this boiling cauldron of particle and field soup, which allows particles to appear randomly, just at the right time for the theory to work. I believe this is odd.

The model I use for reality does not answer the why or where and when question of reality.

It only answers the what is question. This is all physics should do. Why is for preachers, how is for physics.

Unlike the standard model, this model explains the physical cause of the periodic table.

It also predicted(and was confirmed) new properties of the table. It also shows the physical cause for constants.

And with the knowledge of that structure, we can understand and unify.

Anyone who can understand basic electronics, can now understand matter.

ALL energy and ALL mass transfers are VIA rotational resonance.

In the first example in this tread, the magnetic field changes the density of the free electrons on the surface of the conductor. The free electron movement causes the potential difference, not the magnetic field.

An electric field can not create a magnetic field. EVER. PERIOD.

It takes the movement(the movement does not have to be translational) of charge to transfer the energy of the electric to the energy of the magnetic. And visa versa.

A disconnected field can not oscillate. Its like a train of black(electric) and white(magnetic) box cars. If you are at the station and the train goes by.......it looks like it's oscillating. But it's not.

The box cars have to be absorbed by charge.........before they can oscillate again.

Once the fields are cut from the charge.......there is no reference for the fields to work(rotate) with.

When the disconnected field encounters a charge source with the same rotation reference(or multiple thereof) the disconnected fields can be absorbed and once again resume oscillation.

If the disconnected field is strong enough, it can impose it's potential rotation on the grid of free electrons absorbing the field. It(the field) can impose it's potential rotation on current..................radio wave detection. The length of free charge(conductor) determines the range of rotations that can be absorbed(received).

Disconnected(broadcasted, emitted) fields are in a potential, stored state.

We have to remember that when we make measurements, we have to use matter, which reacts with the matter or wave that we are measuring. This can be confusing when you don't realize what matter is. It's hard to tell the chicken from the egg.

Ok, enough.

If I'm not mistaken, a similar circuit was used for decades for true air speed sensors on aircraft.
I believed it measured the vertical component of earth's magnetic field.

Just saw post #87. That hairnet is for electron density, not electron flow!

Electron flow is the same and constant thru out the circuit. At every and ANY point on that circuit the current is 1 C/s......1 amp.

You can draw a circumference at any point and measure 1 amp. Current travels on the circumference(surface).

How can we have the same current is the low density area, that we have in the high density areas? How can such magic happen? What is the physical mechanism that does this?

SPIN. When an electron moves down a conductor, it does not move straight down longitudinally.

It rotates down the conductor like a barber pole. This rate of spin is related to frequency, but is controlled by the number of free electrons, the induced density and the circumference(surface) area.

In the low density area.....the charge movement has more longitudinal component than the spin component. In the high density area........the charge movement has more spin component than the longitudinal component.

This process allows constant unifying current. All charges travel the same speed and distance, thru an unequal density.

Another way to put it........this is how the same amount of current can flow thru different densities and yet all charges travel the same distance and speed.

This all happens automatically, because of the repulsiveness of charge and the restricted surface area.

If you want to know why, ask a modern scientist or shaman. If you want to know how........study classical physics.

 

Reality does not care if you agree with it or not, it just is.

You tend to dismiss science that does not agree with your world view, it is a lot deeper than you seem to think.

Maximum verbosity does not win arguments or discussions, I just don't read them.

 

All lab evidence says this can't happen. So modern science invents new theories, to ignore evidence.

At least half of the referenced post seems to be completely off-topic. Also, I'm not sure what you define "modern science" as (and please, don't define it for me in this thread), but the quoted statement does not define real science.

Science develops theories that attempt to explain observed phenomena (or evidence, if you prefer) based on repeatable experimentation. Theories may be wrong and a legitimate scientist will discard an invalid theory and/or adjust an incorrect theory when new evidence showing as much arises.

Anyone claiming to be a scientist and ignoring evidence (especially evidence that is contrary to their desired outcome) is probably a fraud, charlatan, nutcase, fruitcake, etc.

 

You asked me. I don't know why you asked about ions, other than something I said about my model that doesn't jive with your notion of the standard model.

ALL of the current models, whether scientific or not.......is to unite quantum with the gravitational.....or to get free energy.

My model is to only show the physical cause of the periodic table. No other model comes within a parsec.

It was never meant to unify the cosmos. It was never meant to get free energy.

This model explains how something you can not see yet.................looks and operates.

It's for knowledge, not fame or fortune.

It explains what matter is. It explains the physical process of the two way energy-mass conversion.

With this new physical understanding, it is much clearer and discernible to understand much of the cosmos.

Truly understanding current is nothing compared to what we could do with matter if we had a fast switch.

We could assemble matter without flaw, or if you prefer.....with the perfect flaw.

Your need for meaning and mystery is real. We all have it. It's common.

But there is no meaning in matter. It's just confined charge(energy). There is no meaning in the movement of matter. It moves automatically because of the properties of confinement.

Physics will never explain the purpose of reality or life. Modern science thinks it can. I know better. That's why I dismiss it.

Does this model explain all of reality? Of course not. But it does explain energy and matter.

Does it explain life? No. And it does not try too. Does it explain where all the charge(energy) came from? No. Does it explain how all that charge got confined into particles? No.

Does this model tell us when all this began? Maybe. The universal force equation derived from this model shows that the force of gravity is decaying. If you plot this decay rate........it seems to show that about a billion years ago, all charge particles were together in an ordered blob.

For some unknown reason....the gravity began decaying at a super fast rate. This caused a spin of the blob and an out pouring of charge particles. This spin caused the positive charges to spin in on their structure and the negative charges to spin out on their structure. This caused a physical size difference between charge. This size difference is the only reason for matter. For without this size difference, charge dissolves itself.

Maybe when gravity broke...................it caused charge to confine. Who knows.

That would be hard for me to believe, because gravity is so much weaker than charge.

Maybe it was the confinement of charge that broke gravity. That sounds(logic) better.

There are still many questions.

But not as many as with the standard model.

 

BR-549,

I appreciate your attempts to help me understand my little circuit, but it seems your theory is too broad to explain in the limited space we have here. If there's some way to get quickly from your step one to what's happening in my circuit, let's do it. But I'm afraid the broader discussion just attracts others who disagree with you (in general) and that does nothing but clutter up my already overweight thread.

This is the question that still needs an answer:

Given that 6.28x10^18 electrons are being pushed out of the bottom of the battery every second (that's the definition of an amp of current), what happens to those electrons after that?

 

Round and round they go, to balance the positive ions in the + end. Batteries are another example of chemical ions.

 

This thread is comical and I can't help but think the op is a troll. He ignores every explanation and can't understand that the electrons go round and round and don't build up very much. A small fraction of the charges do build up to maintain a parallel electric field in the conductor and to charge up the paracytic capacitance of the resistor.

A beginner does not need to worry about the build up, but we learn about it as we get more advanced but in no way is that the dominant effect that needs to be understood to figure out how the circuit works. To a very good approximation you can say the electric field is parallel in the conductor and the resistor has insignificant paracytic capacitance.

Why hasn't the op been bothered by another approximation we often make in circuits? That is, his ac circuit with the guitar pickup is going to radiate electromagnetic waves, which we ignore typically for audio curcuits. We learn about that in field theory too.

 

I've been thinking about how those electrons move in my little circuit and this is my conclusion. Here's the picture:


And here are the words:

1. When the wires are first connected to the battery, all of the excess free electrons in the bottom of the battery see an opportunity to redistribute themselves more evenly. So they rush out (they don't like being crammed together) and quickly fill up the wire up to the bottom of the resistor.

2. But then this start-up surge of current meets, literally, with a resistance. Redistribution continues, but with fewer free electrons being spread around, and at a slower pace, to boot. Nevertheless, before long even the top wire has its share of these redistributed electrons -- though not as many as the bottom wire because our 3-volt supply is unable to push more than 1 amp's worth of the little guys through a 3-ohm resistance (per second), and because those that do make it through are quickly sucked up by the positive end of the battery.

3. So we end up, once the circuit stabilizes, with a steady stream of electrons (the dark blue ones, one amp's worth of current) travelling around the loop.

4. But we still have an excess of free electrons in the bottom of the circuit relative to the top of the circuit, and it is this excess that accounts for the extra "pressure" at the bottom; in other words, it is this imbalance that gives us a continuing potential difference (voltage drop) across the resistor.

I think we might even say that current measurements can safely ignore the lighter blue electrons because they're not moving in concert around the loop. But voltage readings must take ALL the electrons, light and dark, into account.

In any case, I believe this description is consistent with the description that Mooers and Davis give regarding how a rush of current coming off the plate of a vacuum tube is converted to a voltage differential across the plate resistor:



And I also believe this description is consistent with Sherwood and Chabay's "variation of surface charge":



Not to mention consistent with the description of the rod in the uniform magnetic field in the very first post of this thread (where the air at the top of the rod is the resistance).

Most importantly, I believe it answers the question "Do electrons 'pile up' in front of resistors?" in an accurate and yet intuitive way, the answer being, Yes -- sometimes free electrons quickly reach and maintain a peak concentration in a particular leg of a circuit, as in the first example above; and sometimes they ebb and flow continuously, as in the output from a vacuum tube acting as an amplifier. There may be other cases as well.

More generally, I think we can safely say that electron distribution is not uniform in most (if not all) operating circuits.

 

They travel down the negative conductor towards the resistor. The longitudinal velocity is SLOW.

If you painted one of the electrons so you could see it..........it would take a minute(or at least some seconds, depending on length of circuit) to complete the circuit.

The current is the same at the same time, at the battery terminals and at both ends of the resistor, or anywhere else on the circuit.

The resistor is a conductor with a calibrated free charge number of electrons. It is calibrated the allow 1 amp. at 1 volt. There are several methods for this.

The electrons travel across the resistor, and on the top positive conductor, return to the positive terminal.

The electrons that cause high density on the negative conductor.........do not come from the battery, although they came through it. Those electrons came from the top conductor.

Good luck on your current studies.

 

I've been thinking about how those electrons move in my little circuit and this is my conclusion. Here's the picture:

View attachment 88795
And here are the words:

1. When the wires are first connected to the battery, all of the excess free electrons in the bottom of the battery see an opportunity to redistribute themselves more evenly. So they rush out (they don't like being crammed together) and quickly fill up the wire up to the bottom of the resistor.

2. But then this start-up surge of current meets, literally, with a resistance. Redistribution continues, but with fewer free electrons being spread around, and at a slower pace, to boot. Nevertheless, before long even the top wire has its share of these redistributed electrons -- though not as many as the bottom wire because our 3-volt supply is unable to push more than 1 amp's worth of the little guys through a 3-ohm resistance (per second), and because those that do make it through are quickly sucked up by the positive end of the battery.

3. So we end up, once the circuit stabilizes, with a steady stream of electrons (the dark blue ones, one amp's worth of current) travelling around the loop.

4. But we still have an excess of free electrons in the bottom of the circuit relative to the top of the circuit, and it is this excess that accounts for the extra "pressure" at the bottom; in other words, it is this imbalance that gives us a continuing potential difference (voltage drop) across the resistor.

I think we might even say that current measurements can safely ignore the lighter blue electrons because they're not moving in concert around the loop. But voltage readings must take ALL the electrons, light and dark, into account.

In any case, I believe this description is consistent with the description that Mooers and Davis give regarding how a rush of current coming off the plate of a vacuum tube is converted to a voltage differential across the plate resistor:

View attachment 88796

And I also believe this description is consistent with Sherwood and Chabay's "variation of surface charge":

View attachment 88797

Not to mention consistent with the description of the rod in the uniform magnetic field in the very first post of this thread (where the air at the top of the rod is the resistance).

Most importantly, I believe it answers the question "Do electrons 'pile up' in front of resistors?" in an accurate and yet intuitive way, the answer being, Yes -- sometimes free electrons quickly reach and maintain a peak concentration in a particular leg of a circuit, as in the first example above; and sometimes they ebb and flow continuously, as in the output from a vacuum tube acting as an amplifier. There may be other cases as well.

More generally, I think we can safely say that electron distribution is not uniform in most (if not all) operating circuits.

So, in all of this explanation you have parroted back what we've been trying to tell you and what those references said. Yet in all of this you still don't understand what is happening. You have no feel for magnitudes and no feel for what effects are dominant. This is the problem when a beginner is given too much detail at first. They lose the forest for the trees.

This charge distribution that you worry about so much is not the cause, but it is a natural response and consequence of Maxwell's field equations. There are an infinite number of possible field solutions that would specify the different charges for the various surface charges on the conductors and parasitic capacitance charges on the resistor. They would all be different, case by case, yet they would all be for the same basic problem with the same voltage on the voltage source and the same resistance on the resistor. That's why you can't tell us the amount of charge. You think it is large ,but it is very tiny. But, you can't give an answer because the answer would depend on wire lengths, wire shapes, resistor physical construction and other things that are not specified in most cases. They aren't specified because they don't matter for circuit "answers" and because the charges are known to be small and not worth considering in practice.

 

The current is the same at the same time, at the battery terminals and at both ends of the resistor, or anywhere else on the circuit.

Yes, the dark blue electrons in my drawing show that quite clearly, I think.

Good luck on your current studies.

Thanks. And I hope you make progress both further developing and convincing others of your theories. They appear (though they are beyond me at the moment) to have a great deal of truth in them.

So, in all of this explanation you have parroted back what we've been trying to tell you and what those references said.

Not quite. On forum after forum I see beginners ask, "Do electrons accumulate in front of resistors?" and invariably the answer is, "NO!" My answer is: "Yes! The electrons that account for the current flow don't accumulate and are uniform everywhere in a stabilized circuit; but the electrons that account for voltage differences exist in greater and lesser concentrations all over any given circuit (and not just in capacitors). And these accumulations are significant. Consider, for example, my earlier guitar pickup example (alternating current):



Here are my "electron maps" for time t1 and t2, respectively.


As you can see, there is a trickle of current that makes it through the resistor. But the music is conveyed to the amp not by this current, but by the much larger quantities of electrons that never make it through the resistor. It is these accumulations that account for the voltage swings that we see on the scope.

And until somebody can draw me a picture that makes more sense, "That's my story, and I'm stickin' to it."

I thank you all for your time, effort, and help.

 

This thread is comical and I can't help but think the op is a troll. ...

I came to that conclusion a long time ago.

 

The insight here is that the movement of electrons in a circuit is twofold:

1. There are electrons that make it (or push others) all the way around, and we speak of this flow as current.

2. There are also electrons that move in a concerted fashion but don't make it (or push others) all the way around, and the resulting accumulations of such, in various spots at various times, account for differences in pressure or voltage.

It's the existence and movements of this second class of electrons that is generally ignored (or outright denied) in the literature, and this omission results in tremendous confusion for beginning students everywhere, as evidenced by (a) the number of times people ask about electrons piling up at the entrance to a resistor, and (b) by the way they find the negative response they inevitably receive unsatisfactory).