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.
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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.
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The balls in the middle of newtons cradle don’t move either.
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This is analogous to saying, the blades on a wind turbine don't go anywhere, they simply spin, and yet power is created.
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.
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why is everyone in this thread telling me to imagine something
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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
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The microwave doesn't heat your food, it just vibrates the water.
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Elections merely facilitate the transfer the power, like (the non-leading edges of?) a drive shaft or cogs.
Even with DC you need a loop (well, a difference).
Carbon fuel one-use mentality where you burn your supply (chemically stored energy) doesn't apply, tho non-rechargeable batteries make it seem so.
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It's just the one electron.... Allegedly
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when you touch something we never actually touch it is all just fields interacting all the way down
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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.
That movement is still energy
Build a circuit to make use of that et voilà
Friction makes heat. Same thing really
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.
Theres a gnarly your mom joke in here somewhere
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.
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Yep, exactly why it works so much better over distance than DC.
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Presumably the vibrating back and forth causes a net negative charge to propagate down the line?
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So you're admitting that AI data centers vibe pretty hard? Your words!
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