What?
Emphasis added
I think centrifugal force is an example as well.
There is no physical force that is the centrifugal force in the way that the electro-weak or strong forces are.
We still say, Atom Bomb, despite the fact that they are not made with diesel fuel or fertilizer. They should properly be called Nuclear Ordinance.
>But it isn’t. As has been posted already, the drift velocity of electrons in a conductor is on the order of a few inches per hour. Yes, per hour. As in sixty minutes. But when you make a phone call across the country through regular old UTP cable, the signal gets there almost instantaneously. Why would this be if it’s the electrons that are carrying the energy which makes up the signal?
First of all, the drift velocity is proportional to the flux density, which varies widely. I will report back on how high it can be in heavily loaded wires.
But, the energy can move more quickly than the objects whose movements transport it. For example, you can have a long hydraulic line, and push fluid into one end and have a cylinder at the far end do work. The energy moves along the line at sonic velocity, while the fluid may move a neglible fraction of the length of the line. But clearly the energy is being carried by the fluid.
I stand corrected about drift velocity - near as I can make out, it is pretty hard to get a drift velocity as high as a mm per second, much less inches.
Still, I maintain that energy can be transported by the movement of objects at speeds much faster than the average movement of the objects. I propose sound is another example, and a belt drive or chain drive is yet another, as is a driveshaft. You can transmit mechanical energy to the far end of a driveshaft at a speed that is, to human perception, practically infinite - and do so by turning the shaft at unimpressive speeds. Certainly it is movement of the substance of the shaft that is carrying the energy.
I’m not sure if you know what you’re talking about and you are light years ahead of my own understanding (a distinct possibility) or if you don’t actually understand the topic yourself. Either way, I now know less about the propagation of electrical current and hold the belief that my car can go at practically infinite speeds (puny humans!)
>I’m not sure if you know what you’re talking about …or if you don’t …
Let’s try this.
You transmit energy through some medium if you are doing work at one end of the medium and work gets done at the other end.
So, we make a shaft 100’ long, and it’s horizontal, and there’s a crank at one end and the other end drives a winch at the top of a well.
And you start cranking away on the crank, and instantly - well, as far as you can see, it looks instant - the winch starts hauling rope and a bucket of water starts rising up out of the well.
So, this means you’re transmitting energy to the well, through the shaft. From the point of view of human perspective, this transmission happens instantly.
Now, suppose we replace the shaft with a hydraulic pump at the crank end, two lengths of hose, and a hydraulic motor at the winch end (we’ll steal the hydraulic components from a tractor). Still, when you start cranking, the winch starts winching, practically immediately.
So you are still transmitting energy through this system.
Now, with the hydraulic components in play, you are also pumping hydraulic fluid around in this loop. But it doesn’t have to circulate very fast. The pressure multiplied by the flow must equal the energy transmitted, but that’s a detail - the hydraulic fluid may still be crawling through the hose very slowly.
The hydraulic fluid does not have to make it from one end to the other quickly in order for the energy to be transmitted quickly. The two things move in different ways and probably at different speeds.
Electrical current is like that. In fact, it’s so analogous to flowing liquids that the flow is called a “current” and the potential energy is referred to as “pressure” (at least in the UK, though here in the US it’s called “voltage”).
How’s that work for you?