Re: All that glisters is not gold

[Brian McInnes <mcinnes@PHYSICS.USYD.EDU.AU>]

Brian Whatcott took an opportunity to tweak (thge noses, I guess) of
"inconoclasts" who remind people that conduction electrons travel slowly
around a circuit.  I've got no objection to having my nose tweaked but I'm
not quite sure why.
Lets' look at what some of what Brian wrote, annotating as I go.

> I note that resistive
> differences are not principally assigned to differences in the number of
> conduction electrons, but rather in their 'mobility'.

I agree with you on that.


> In this respect, it's helpful to tweak the iconoclasts who take pleasure
> in reminding us that electrons do not travel down a wire at near the speed
> of light, (though energy usually does),

I agree about the electron speed and the energy speed but note that the
energy, which is carried by the elctromagnetic field, does not go down the
wire but through the space not the wire.

> about a statistical feature of electron motion, so to speak.
>
>   Notwithstanding their strictures about the snail's pace of DRIFT
> velocity - it is quite permissible to visualize electron velocity as
> several million meters per second (electric field or no...)


No, I can't see that at all, even after I read what you write - I'm missing
something

>   The model for resistance in metals is the probability that an electron
> will collide with an ionic barrier.

Yes, I agree with that  but, I'm sorry, Brian, I can't see why that lets
you think that electrons are up and away

> Ref 1 holds up nickel vs. nichrome
> as an example of two materials with very similar numbers of conduction
> electrons, but widely different resistivity (20:1)

Again, no problem. What am I missing?

Brian McInnes