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Old 01-26-2005, 06:29 PM
Sweaburg Sweaburg is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2004
Location: Ottawa, ON
Posts: 42
Default Re: Electron velocity question

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I'm suprised nobody has talked about electron drift which is totally different than electron speed. I would think that most people would easily reverse the two.

FYI, for a copper wire of radius of 1 mm carrying a current of 10 Amps, the drift velocity (velocity the electron travels down the wire) is only a very slow 0.024 cm/sec.

That same electron is traveling about c/3 around the copper atoms though.

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bah, nobody who's anybody confuses drift velocity with velocity.

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Word. Drift only occurs in a conductive medium and given the basic nature of the original question I'm pretty confident we're working in a vacuum here.

Keep It Simple Stupid

R.
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