Your friend tells you that reason why the light in your room comes on immediately when you throw the switch is because the charged particles in the circuit are moving at nearly the speed of light. Is she correct?
Your friend tells you that reason why the light in your room comes on immediately when you throw the switch is because the charged particles in the circuit are moving at nearly the
Electric current is caused by the flow of electrons in the circuit. Now, the electrons are very light particles, and they are present everywhere in the circuit. When there is no battery connected, they are randomly distributed.
When the external battery is connected these randomly distributed electrons get direction and orient themselves.
The electrons do not move at the speed of light. Actually, what happens is that, assume an electron present near the terminal of the supply. It gives push to the electron present closest to it, and the process continues so on. Hence each electron actually travels a very little distance. The speed with which they travel is much less than the speed of light.
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