Circuit Energy doesn't FLOW the way you THINK!
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- čas přidán 27. 04. 2024
- Based on the laws of electrodynamics, energy cannot flow in the same direction as the electric current. According to the Poynting vector, electric power will flow anywhere there is both an electric field and a magnetic field. The consequences may surprise you.
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VIDEO ANNOTATIONS/CARDS
Does Electricity REALLY Flow?
• Does Electricity REALL...
What the HECK are Magnets?
• What the HECK are Magn...
You Do NOT "Charge" A Battery!
• You Do NOT "Charge" A ...
What the HECK is Energy?
• What the HECK is Energy?
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LINKS TO COMMENTS
Alternating Current:
• Turning Magnetism Into...
• Does Electricity REALL...
• Does Electricity REALL...
• Does Electricity REALL...
TURN DOWN FOR WATT?!
• Does Electricity REALL...
Perpetual Motion:
• Turning Magnetism Into...
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IMAGE CREDITS
John Henry Poynting:
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Ben Franklin:
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JJ Thomson:
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I seem to have made _educational_ choices in this video that some viewers feel are mistakes. They are not mistakes, but I’d like to take a moment to clarify so you can understand why I made them.
1. I know the potential across the surface of a perfect conductor should be zero, so the electric field should be perpendicular… but there’s no such thing as a perfect conductor. Materials fall on a spectrum, which is something I’ve been saying since this video: czcams.com/video/QKxep82_9b8/video.html
2. I’m aware that the directions of my vectors are not _perfect._ As I said in point #1, materials fall on a spectrum. The direction of the electric field and, therefore, the direction of the Poynting vector depends on how conductive the material is. While that detail is true, it isn’t actually _important_ to understand what’s happening with the energy in the circuit. For clarity, I chose to omit some components of the vector because they distract from the main take-away of this video: *The energy flows through the fields, not the wires.* I stand by this decision.
3. At 5:15, I say “we’ve got a strong electric field inside” the wire “and a little electric field outside.” Strong and little are a very relative words. Broadly speaking, _all_ the fields we’re dealing with in this video are _weak._ However, in the context of the circuit, what matters is how those fields compare _only to each other._ The electric field inside the wire might be weak, but it’s stronger than the electric field outside. Maybe I should have said “stronger” instead “strong,” but I don’t really think that’s worth getting upset about.
4. Speaking of field strengths, yes, I’m aware the field is _strongest_ at the surface of the wire. Is the surface of the wire not part of the wire? I’m not sure how this negates anything I said in this video. In fact, that statement is completely consistent with my electric current animations in the video I linked to in point #1.
WOW ! The amount of effort you put into your videos is UNREAL
Think about it: if the field is (almost) perpendicular at the conductor's surface, and the tangential component is conserved at the discontinuity, how can it be stronger inside than it is outside? Just draw the components, and you'll see.
You want to see it at the extreme? Consider a Van der Graaf machine: strong field you can literally feel, directed from positive pole to negative or ground pole. Put your conductor with a resistor nearby and make contact. The free charge in the conductor will redistribute itself so as to make the field inside zero (if the conductor is perfect, but let's say it will make that small value that is complying with ohm's law, so if you have a moderate resistor, for a moderate current, you will have a field in the order of some microvolt per meter). You can supply mechanical energy to the machine in order to create an equilibrium condition where the current is constant). Do you still believe that the field outside, the field generated by the Van der Graaf generator, is smaller then the one inside the conductor?
No, it isn't. It's almost the same field. The conductor is obliterating it inside, leaving only that tiny fraction that will comply with ohm's law. The role of surface charge (on the lateral surface of the copper wires) is to do just that on the inside. On the outside said charge will alter the original field in such a way as to be nearly perpendicular nearby the surface. This is basically what happens in electrostatic when you place a piece of copper inside an electric field. Look how the copper distort the original field lines, for example when you place a copper sphere inside a uniform electric field.
Things get different when, instead of a conductor, you consider a resistive material: the field in the circuit is basically concentrated at the resistor, due to the surface charge that accumulate at the discontinuity in sigma. So, stronger field inside the resistor, and the field lines bend. In 1962, Jefimenko showed this experimentally using high voltage sources and grass seeds.
The dependance of charge density from the gradients in conductivity and permeability can be deduce from Maxwell's equations and the constitutive relation in copper and in the resistive material.
thanks
> … but there’s no such thing as a perfect conductor.
Except a superconductor. Just saying. This is clarification, not criticism.
Paul Lutus, not even a superconductor is a perfect conductor. They're just as close as we can get to being a perfect conductor.
Ben Franklin said that Amber becomes negative when rubbed? Maybe she just wasn't into him.
underrated! here, have a like
😂🤣😂🤣
Maybe he rubbed Amber the wrong way. ; )
🤣😂🤣😂
Wow that Amber Heard gets around...
I'm PhD student in physics and I already knew about Poynting vector and its applications on Maxwell's equations
But I've never thought about energy flow on the circuit. That was truly mind-blowing.
Yeah, the Poynting vector is a much bigger deal than E&M courses usually show.
They slam it pretty heavy in RF engineering.... If the professor isn't a moron.
yes, energy and magnetism in a 3D vector
@@ScienceAsylum dude for real, i literally never heard about the energy flow, but have on poynting vector, in fact theres only a few pages about it in my textbook, that's really awesome!!
My original purpose for this first comment here was to reprimand mildly any physics or EE researcher/engineer who accepted this video's idea readily without doubt. I am sorry if my words then hurt anyone or cause confusion. I just hope people with related background could judge the video's conclusion by themselves.
The very original trouble-making comment is put below:.
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Hi, are you still sure about your words? It is meaningless to get a Physics PhD without figuring out this basic EM textbook question.
Regards.
Someone who knows nothing about electricity: "electricity is literally magic"
Someone who knows a little about electricity: "electricity isn't magic, it's science"
Someone who knows this about electricity: "electricity is literally magic, and we know this because it's science"
Thank you. Beautifuly put
Exactly... this path is true of many many subjects.
and RF design, microstrip and GHz waveguides inside your iPhone ...that's the Dark Arts.
I've been saying this for years, it really is the closest thing to magic!
Funny how the two concepts are often thought of as opposing each other, yet science is just the process of learning the rules of how things work. Even in a total magic fantasy land like Harry Potter there is "science" whenever someone studies "magic" and learns something new about how it works.
I worked for Atlantic City electric as a lineman, we were not taught this. We were told to think of it like a water hose. This is mind blowing for sure. Thank you for what you do
I'm sure the water hose analogy is plenty good enough to keep you safe as a lineman. There's usually no practical need to teach circuits this deeply.
@@ScienceAsylum Would it only matter when you have two circuits next to each other ... such inside of a CPU when the power flow from one is happening a few nm away from another.
Came for a little light science. Left with entire view of the universe changed. Mind blown.
I did a PhD in string theory/quantum gravity and teach physics for 3 years now. Only this week I learned how energy is transferred exactly in a curcuit. These videos are amazing. Many thanks.
Question for you: My naive understanding is that fields are mediated by "force carriers". Does this therefore mean that photons are being somehow exchanged between the source and the wires + bulb?
@@pauldilley8974 No. We use these force carriers as "virtual particles" in interactions. But "virtual particles" are bookkeeping devices, which mathematically look like particles, which enable us to do the calculations. I'd call these interactions "quantum fluctuations". We can't solve for these interactions analytically, so we have to use approximations. Virtual particles are part of these approximation schemes.
You are kidding?!!! Wow. Go for it man. Please research more. Universal free energy is the reward.
@@kourosh234 Well, as physicists say, there are no free lunch. Energy cannot be created nor destroyed, you can only convert from one form to another. But you can get close to "free" energy by using something like fusion energy, or even better, "dark energy"...and other forms of energy that we don't even know of yet. If we can get there, we can become an interstellar specie, and who know how far we can go.
@@haushofer100 Do you mean that photons are always virtual? Or are they virtual in this case? And if the latter, why is that so as opposed to, for example, the photon between a light source and my eye or any other electron-electron interaction.
Veritasium brought me here... and at this video is where I was finally enlightened that flow of charges is NOT the same as flow of energy. Thank you, Nick, for this awesome educational video!
This is quickly becoming one of my favorite science channels on CZcams!
As for me, it's already ny favorite! I cannot not watch a video of this channel every single day.
"I love puns" Me too, but I have this friend who is too serious. I told him 10 puns hoping at least one would make him laugh. Unfortunately, no pun in ten did.
...that took me a second. Well done 😂
I don’t think most people got it, because it deserve way more likes than that.
From now on, let everyone who gets it like this comment.
What does it mean? Please enlighten me.
@@shantanuborgohain8331
When making a pun, one might call attention to it by saying "pun intended", or if it was uninentional, one might still call attention to it by saying "no pun intend".
I told a joke about telling a fictitious friend that was just too serious to enjoy the double meanings found in ten different puns that I told him, so it was then that no, not even one pun in ten made him laugh. Adding irony to the homophonic pun in the joke, my pun was intended even as I said "no pun in ten did", the homophonic pun of "no pun intended".
@@shantanuborgohain8331 more puns on puns:
A good pun is its own reword.
Reward, a positive reinforcement vs Reword, to change meaning.
I will refrain from making food puns because they can get a bit cheesy. Cheesy jokes are cheap, or unpleasant, unsubtle, and sometimes inauthentic. Cheesy foods are just filled with cheese.
As a physicist, I approve this message. Best explanation I have seen so on the internet so far.
Your name reminds me of my electromagnetism lecturer! He always makes the stupid joke that the unit of capacitance is named after 'bicycle' in German.
@@morganmitchell4017 Well, thanks - I guess.
[know-it-all mode on] But your lecturer is not quite correct. The unit of capacitance is the 'Farad' based on the last name of Michael Faraday, as you know.
"Bicycle" in German is "Fahrrad" with one "h" and two "r". It's a composit word comprised of "Fahr" from the verb "fahren" (closest translation is "to drive", but in this case it's "to ride") and the noun "Rad" (meaing "wheel").
While it's made up of two words is has a distinct meaning in every day use (like the english word "bicycle" = "bi" and "cycle" = two cycles/wheels).[know-it-all mode off]
And now you know why that joke IS stupid.
@@derradfahrer5029 Thanks for the explanation. It's strange that the unit is just Farad, and not Faraday. After all, the unit of current is the Ampere, even though it's commonly shortened to Amp. I guess three syllables are just too many.
@@morganmitchell4017 Alessandro Volta should also be complaining then.
@@morganmitchell4017 That would also be the reason there are not a lot of Indian scientists who have their name attached to a physics phenomenon.
I am really glad I just randomly found your channel. I am a second year electrical engineering student and lots of your videos are giving me a more intuitive feel for things instead of just crunching numbers according to formulas. Great job.
Thanks!
@@ScienceAsylum bro make video about surface charge and inner electric field that pushing current and include also how it aplies to tranzistors ect XDDD
This video made me realize that after years working with electric circuits i never really understood how energy flows on the circuit. The fact that energy comes not through the wire is kinda mind-blowing.
Yeah, it was mind blowing for me too. I think they just don't teach this in electronics because it doesn't really affect circuit design.
I too learnt circuit theory decades ago and this reality was not covered. It blows your mind when thinking about complex circuits eg computer chips
The hard part is accepting the fact that energy does NOT flow though the wire, but through the space AROUND the wire. This is another non-intuitive aspect of Physics.
Yes, that's is the main take-away from this video :-)
@@ScienceAsylumWait a second, surely if you had a VERY long cable that loops back on it's self to a light bulb next to the input switch, it would still take a while for the light bulb to turn on. Under the conventional hydraulic circuit analogy this is obvious, as the signal has a propagation speed along the pipe/wire, in this case near the speed of light. If the energy flows by fields then surely the distance between input and output is what determines the transmission lag, not the wire length? What am I missing?
@@chalichaligha3234 the field is what help accelerate the charges near the speed of light since theres no delay between fields at any given location ( nearly instantaneous.)
Not to forget about distribution as well
@@chalichaligha3234 If you had a wire so long that the speed of light would be noticeable (like, say, it goes to the Moon and back for some crazy reason), then you would notice a delay. Einstein's relativity requires this.
Years of studying electrical engineering, and I figure out what I'm actually learning in college from a youtube recommendation. Mind = blown
I’m so mind blown idk what I just learned. Imma have to rewatch and do some experiments to understand better.
I dont know of any experiments that tests this. I think its more of a theoretical explanation. To learn more, I would try to compare these energy field with normal radio fields from radio energy transmitters. Radio waves are electrical circuits without wires. Antennas are somewhere in between, one conductor.
I feel bad that you wasted your life.
@@squarehead44 money, not life. What do you do with your life that's so worth living? Obviously If you get to where you've been going and you turn out not to like it then yeah, you may have wasted your life. Me? I love academia. not necessarily college, tests, and diplomas, those can all take a hike up my grammas rectum.
I like to learn and better myself. Even when things fail I try and not let it be wastfull and use the falure.
I'm electrical and mechanical engineer/tech(wish there were a better word) I'mma start generalizing and just say scientist because I can. I didn't go to colledge but thats what I am and thats how I make my money. But you gotta be able to prove to people u got the stuff and if you don't plan on working for yourself all your life, ya gotta pay for that accreditation.
IDK, I think school is wack too and needs a serious redesign all thru, even school for kids is too much in some areas and not enough or non existant in really important life skills. i cant keep typing. my question was, what you be doing thats not a waste of time?
@@Wtfinc my comment wasn’t directed at you, but you do seem like a real peach. 🤪🙄
Cannot say that I have completely comprehended all this by now, but I'm getting closer. Your vids are a great way to get a general direction what to research next and the way you communicate it is quite entertaining.
Glad I could send you on the proper research path 👍
I am an electric engineer, and feel like I need to watch this video at least 15 more times... working on it!
That was fantastic. And yes, my head exploded. I'm going to have to watch that 50 more times ... 20 of them just for the sheer Joy of it, 23 of them to understand it, and 7 because I like round numbers. Totally unimportant.
I’ve always wondered why people like round numbers. Not me.
@@carlosprieto2231 It was a joke ... I was poking fun at myself ... it was an excuse to talk about having to watch it "50" times ... there was no logic to 20 for joy or 23 to understand ... but if you prefer, 7 and 23 are prime, clearly not rounded ... and 20 was not rounded, it was 2x2x5 (more primes). Better? :-)
Watt is love? Baby don't Hertz me, don't Hertz me, no more.
Ha!
go dc my friend no hertz at all.
OMG. Too funny.
Weird commas but okay ;)
Matthew H fixed it. Thanks
Came here after veritasium’s video. Ur explanation answered some questions that I got from watching veritasiums video 💪🏽
Much better than the veritasium video, which was clearly largely based on yours. Well done.
My mind is officially blown! I got my PhD in physics 10 years ago, and I do science for a living. I’ve never thought much about E&M though. I just took the one required class and I specialized in a field of physics that doesn’t deal with electromagnetism. This was an amazing video! Well done!
Thanks! Yeah, Poytning doesn't get much attention for some reason. Maybe it's because, while the Poynting vector can give us a deeper understanding in some situations, you don't need it for _practical_ work very often 🤷♂️
I used to take haircuts as mr. kick ass and chew bubble gum... he was my damn Idol back in the day :)
@@DePistolero Rowdy Roddy Piper?
@@dukenukem9770 Oh, boy, this was so informative now, I learned about electricity and that Duke Nukem actually used movie lines :) Thanks. Didn't know that. No not Rowdy, I used to take haircut as Duke Nukem, and he was my idol :D
@@DePistolero LMAO Gotcha! 🤣
1:12 "we have to live with it now."
So, we should just go with the _flow?_
Don't forget Watt's the unit of power.
It is better not to resist..
@@ErikU19 The current capacity for people to potentially resist powerful puns induces much silliness. Sorry, I couldn't resist either.
@@maximkhan-magomedov431 who's on first...
Master Therion first you blow, then you flow.
About the poynting vector, you can use a wave intuition. The molecules in seawater move up and down, yet the wave moves laterally. If you cause a wave in a chain with the opposite end being fixed, the links move vertically yet the (energy) wave moves horizontally
you mean that the electrons have a much higher speed not in current flow direction?
I think this is the second video of yours i've seen larger science channels release.
You're ahead of the curve! Subscribed.
5:57, my mind stopped working after this.
How was I never taught about this? Where did you learn about this? How can this channel not have a million subscribers?
Hotel?
Trivago.
I feel the same way. WHY IS THIS NOT TAUGHT IN ELECTRODYNAMICS CLASS!?!
@@ScienceAsylum how did you find out about this?
@@yatint9665 He'd tell you, but then he'd have to kill you. Indirectly.
@@batfan1939 apparently with magnetic fields. :p
@@yatint9665 the sources are in the description
This changed everything about my understanding of electrodynamics since I first learned about it in the 70s! Thank you for producing such a brilliant video.
brilliant.org
There have been new electric discoveries since then
Two years before Veritasium
I watched this video back in 2019, but today, when I watched it again, it was just as amazing as it was 4 years back! You're a brilliant explainer!
Thanks! It's the best I could do at the time. My animation skills have improved since then, which is why I recently made a follow-up video on capacitors: czcams.com/video/zYRx6Zub3cA/video.html
@@ScienceAsylum With the Veritasium video blowing up, I started searching for what he was talking about. In many ways that made natural sense to me, but those are feelings, not reason. I'm a hobbyist, I never finished high school, these Videos, Veritasium, The ScienceClic English channel, and Altium Live lectures with Rick Hartley and Eric Bogatin have really opened my understanding. I'm not going to understand a college text book, or an EE text book, I'm not School'd for it, may of us Normies really don't have the brain power for it. I now try and Educate people who are into Electronics, I want to move them from the Hydro-model to the Electrodynamic model.
*My Goal is to teach people about the Electrodynamics* - as Rick Hartley said "What's the difference between Electricity and Visible Light? Answer make me think.. HUH? It's Frequency!" Great Scott I said to myself, it's makes sense, from DC to Audio to High Speed circuits, we then Create into Thin Air Radio Waves, Radio waves to Light.... of course!
I thought I had a good knowledge of electricity, but yet again you have blown my mind. Never stop making these quality videos, you have a talent for teaching.
I was curious after watching Veritasium's video about this. TWICE. But now I understand it after I watched your video. Thanks! And yeah, my jaw also dropped in awe :O
Now I'm off to Space Time's new video about black holes!
EDIT: on a side note, now I need a more precise quantum explanation of all of this xD
EDIT2: quite a discussion we have here :)
Same! Honestly, I feel this video did a better job at making this subject clearer than Derek's did. To be fair, it's a REALLY counter-intuitive thing and super hard to explain; I definitely still don't totally understand it. Some additional concrete examples and more detailed breakdown would help.
So, is it right to say that the EM field causes charge/electrons to move and that is what *powers* the bulb, ie the electrons are getting shoved around by the field created by the charge?
@@ophidahlia1464 I agree i watched this vid when it released and it blew my mind, i found dereks explaination a little harder to follow
@@ophidahlia1464 2:02 Nick said shat even though the electrons carry energy, it's not that specific energy that actually powers the bulb in this example. So it's not the moving electrons that light the bulb. Now I am lost because I want to know how exactly a simple light bulb get's lit up. I understood it before this and Derek's video and now I don't :D
Same. This one made it clear to me. Veritasium video seems to imply the power travels through space and time from the power source to the light bulb which made no sense. It makes much more sense that the fields inside and along the circuit „excite“ the power field and draw power from it while the power source does the opposite.
@@NimbleBard48 A bulb with current running through it has energy flowing into it from the field. That energy is converted into heat. Hot things emit light, but usually mostly invisible wavelengths of light (like infrared). _Really_ hot things emit visible light.
As a retired EE, knew about both "Emag" and circuits but sort of compartmentalized them and didn't fully appreciate them together to fully grasp the energy flow aspect with in circuits. Great video-- thanks!
CZcams algorithm brought me here after the Veritasium video that exploded recently and I'm appreciating your content very much! Also kudos for still replying to comments and explaining after almost 3 years of uploading this video!
Comments are a big deal 👍
THIS is the way physics should be taught.
Why do people have to make it so dull? Teaching always stops with the equations, and then they ask us to solve problems with the equations.
Students should be taught how all this corresponds to reality. Great job on the video Nick, lot of effort put in to blow our minds. 😵
But in a physics class you actually do physics; doing the equations is what "doing" physics is. Same as, say, phys ed. You have to actually DO the activity in gym you can't just watch an NBA game and say, see, now that there is how a layup works.
I am doing physics too now as well and I get what you mean, but learning the equations and all that in classes are STEPS towards working out physics problems in reality. These videos just give a little more of a bigger image comparing to what we are taught. Before I thought that the way teachers have taught in schools was wrong because of how these videos may interpret things better than in school, but teachers in school can't just go that deep and just skip the basics required to know. That's like trying to build a 30 storey tall building and just skipping floors 3 and 4, not the greatest building you will have ever constructed. So same idea here as well with the teaching. So school is where we learn the basics pretty much but if you want to take it up a notch, watch these videos instead to get a bigger and deeper understanding. Also, don't think you will never get to this stage of deep understanding, wait till university.
@@dougiev9287 Equation is not all that there is to physics. In fact theory and practicals are what matters in phsyics. Equations are just numerical representations of theory, just a little more rigorous. Equations can be solved just by using calc but theory require a brain and imagination
Most people alive today wont even pay enought attention to get the dull parts... even most of the kids wont ever.
@@aquastudio6875 Man just listen to your self:
We have to teach boring things because intresting things are ungraspable and impossible to build upon.
Best one yet. I have a degree in Electronic Engineering and I've never had a satisfactory explanation for this despite asking your very question about AC in college. A little moment of dizziness as my paradigm shifts and welcome to that joy when suddenly the pieces fit together a lot better. Thanks.
Now THIS makes electricity more interesting, I might start studying this topic on the side, even though I am already studying another field. Great video!
I watched so many of your videos in the last week or so because of recently discovering you. I was bleeding a bicycle brake earlier when it just occurred to me that the way you describe electrical charges in relation to the movement of electrons is very similar to the way brake fluid works. When you pull the brake lever, the brake fluid only moves a millimeter or two in the hose, but all of the brake fluid in the entire hose and the fluid in the caliper is forced to move in response to you pulling the brake lever. The fluid you're pushing on with the piston in the master cylinder doesn't have to touch the brake pads, because it is pushing on the fluid next to it, which is pushing on the fluid next to that, which is switching on the fluid next to that, all the way to the fluid that's right on the backside of the caliper piston.
This is the most insane thing I've learned from this channel (while wiping tears of laughter from my eyes), and I learn something almost every time I watch - even when I thought I knew the subject. Nick is the king of Hilarity Physics. I'm going to watch it several more times now so that I can have a less feeble grasp of the concept. To the Equation Lab!
I think he should be the next host of cosmos XD
Legitimately mind blowing. It’s frustrating how they don’t teach these things properly in schools and even undergrad uni
The general public seem to struggle with Ohm’s law, hence they think a car battery can electrocute them if the cold cranking amp rating is high enough (yet it’s still a measly 12V). Given they don’t understand Ohm’s law, how would they understand this video?
@@Lozzie74 dont talk like you are some kind of master and all the "general public" are ignorant dumbasses...people like you have a name in my country..... yes there are people uneducated or ignorant about electricity but what do you know about cooking? knitting? hunting or fishing? plumbing? woodwork? civil engineering? bricklaying? got my point? having a degree only states you had time and money to spend and went through the process..there are many people without academic degree that can learn about any subject very fast if they are motivated and interested...and being humble is something you should never stop being no matter the degree of "academic education" you may have.
The mathematical expression includes the cross product between vector fields, if you don't have enough knowledge about linear algebra and calculus it doesn't make sense to teach it this way because you won't properly understand it anyways.
You could make the same argument about pretty much all classical physics and the answer is still the same, advanced unintuitive things aren't great introductions to complex topics when they can be explained in an easier (albeit not entirely correct) way.
I dunno man this was exactly what I was taught when I did my undergrad physics degree years ago
practical electric analysis are weeell covered with classic current theory. You only need this when it comes to transmition lines. Transmition line theory starts when the distance from the source to the load gets near the wave lenght of the signal. When it happens? Long energy transmition lines, high frequency, antennas. But it's specific electrical engeenering topic :)
I saw veritasiums video, but the last thing you said about power coming from the ac generator and needing the battery to access the power made so much more sense, thank you!
I sort of understood this concept, but you showing the clear difference between charge and energy was what made it click for me. I've been watching since 10k and your explanations keep getting better and better
I've been a physicist for 50 years and every now and again I've puzzled about energy flow in circuits. Not until this video did I realise the answer lay with considering the poynting vector carefully.
I've done my bachelor degree in Physics and Master's in Instrumentation still this visualisation really blew my mind. At the end you've shown that your head exploded and so do mine 🤣😂🤣😂
I felt the exact same thing and my monkey brain made me blast into spontanious uncontrolled laughter when he fried his own brain! Very funny! Magnificent video! :D
Mr Lucid, you are amazing. Following you for a while now and you are making sciene comprehensible for non amateurs like me. Thank you so much!!
You are very welcome 🤓
Glad to get more information about this! The Veritasium video didn't explain what happens over time especially in the remote parts of the circuit.
A physics teacher told us,en passant, in a class almost 40 years ago, that the eletric energy travels not through the wire as we thought, but that was some hard topic. Now I (almost) understand it! Thank you.
Glad I could help :-)
After this video something clicked in my understanding of electricity, enen though I already knew this topic. Everything makes sense now!
Amazing work! You're a hero
fritt wastaken right...
I mean, it makes sense..
since we now have qi wireless chargers topping up our phones & smartwatches.. we *already* know the magnetic field has a huge part to play in transferring energy from source to device.
Thank you for this refreshing video! All these vector identities and I had never seen the big picture!
Thanks for the education Always love learning how things work
As an electrician, a good explanation of AC is definitely appreciated!
So what you're saying is that the wires connecting the battery to the lightbulb is simply to channel the electric field of the battery? That's amazing and makes so much sense. Thanks.
After seeing Veritasium's video, i thought i had seen this on your channel before... and here it is!! Found your description much sharper and intuitive. Thanks for this great video, this is not an easy thing to grasp, great job!!
Thanks! 🤓
Yes, me too!!
The biggest mental barrier in electrodynamics has always been to me, that it is difficult to find an explanation of how it actually works and why, in the context of the bigger picture.
This is the only explanation I have found, that actually does make sense, connects all the important dots and is still understandable.
Great work!
Okay, you win, this blew my mind. I have the most stupid grin on my face right now.
MrTej780
is this so mind blowing tho?
I mean, it makes sense..
since we now have qi wireless chargers topping up our phones & smartwatches.. we *already* know the magnetic field has a huge part to play in transferring energy from source to device. am I missing something ?
I had the same reaction. The joy of enlightenment... :)
@@GetUrOwnHandle It's certainly obvious that both electric and magnetic fields play a role in energy transfer, as in the case of wireless chargers. But I think it's fair to say most people erroneously assume that the direction of energy flow is along the electric/magnetic fields, rather than orthogonal to it. Despite us being familiar with the transverse nature of light, intuition usually makes us imagine energy flowing along the wire, not into the wire.
MrTej780 - *Current* and *electricity* are really *_CRAZY_* .
@@MrTej780 Energy flow isn't into the wire. That's the bit that is horribly (and embarrassingly) wrong in this video.
This DID indeed blow my mind... a few times. For my practical use, not that important. But for understanding the real world... very well done!
Oh god how did i miss this channel..why didn't CZcams recommend me this...such a brilliant and easily to understand explanation.
I've been waiting for this definition for 42 years. One would be amazed that no one else could describe it without invoking magic.
@BernardosBros I feel lucky that it was only 20 years for me. :D
It isn't that hard lol
And doesn't require all this explanation.
@@MadScientist267 ~
We'll be the judge of that. ;)
@@A.R.77 LOL My work here is done
I just came from the Veratasium video about this. I think I'm maybe sort of starting to get it, but probably not. The fact that this is so different than how I've imagined it happening for so many years makes it hard for me to get a grasp on it. I think I'm going to spend the rest of my night on this.
It's not difficult our wrong leaning made this difficult (my opinion)
It takes a while to sink in. That's normal 👍
@@ScienceAsylum As an electrical engineer, I feel there are some inaccuracies with both your and Derek's video. That being said, Mehdi has already announced he is making a rebuttal video, so I will leave it to him to make the counter-claims
@@ScienceAsylum When the windows of perception are cleaned a bit and the Reality beyond is not what you had been told then it's time to take a road trip or listen to jazz music or both. A paradigm change can be very difficult, regardless of the field of study.
@@arshia.sasson who’s Mehdi? I did a quick search couldn’t come up with anything. I’d like another perspective.
This is actually a much clearer explanation than Veritasium's recent video. Nicely done!
Yes, I'm as "Mind Blown" as you. Thank you for taking the time to put together this video and for doing such a good job of explaining something that is SO counterintuitive. I've taught for years that the flow of electricity is analogous to the flow of water in a hose. Now I need to change my PPT slides.
Not sure if you read all comments or not, but thank you for producing such nice, short blips that explain scientific principles in such an entertaining method.
You're welcome :-) I do read all the comments. I just don't always respond.
Some critical ideas there that I've never seen in any advanced text book: The fields are attached to space, they are not emitted by the charges and are still there in the absence of charges but are zero. Great animations to show it.
Although not the subject of the video it explains why the speed of light is the same for everyone whatever their speed because empty space is the same for everyone whatever their speed.
You went ahead and blew the rest of whatever was left of my mind after this video. I think I finally have an understanding how light travels even in an empty space. Reading about quantas never cleared that up as that was a mere semantic to avoid the REAL concept, and now this makes it abundantly clear that light, as well as any EM wave is just a property of space, interwoven in the very nature of the universe just how charges and magnetic fields are. This is beautiful!
But wait, can dormant (or zero as this video calls it) electric field and magnetic field exist in absolutely empty space without the presence of any fundamental particles?
@@EvilSapphireRThe video suggests they can and it challenges the idea that a charged particle 'produces' a field, it seems that it modifies a field that's already there just as a stone thrown into a still pond modifies the surface of the water that's already there. A still pond can exist without the presence of stones!
For your first point, empty space has a property that determines the speed of light: permittivity and permeability. It's like a grin without a cat - a property without a substance. Space has to be a complete void, anything else at all and the speed of light would be relative to it, which goes against theory and experiment.
I'd say the motion of an EM wave depends on a property of space rather than say that the existence of an EM wave is a property of space. It's conceivable that space could've been 'created' without an EM field in it so there'd be no EM waves.
I still don't think anyone really understands how the speed of light is relative to total nothingness and not to the source or observer. As you say we tend to get distracted by snazzy equations, we should first think in plain English what the equations are actually based on and this video is the first I've seen that illustrates the important fundamentals.
I've only consolidated the mystery, I haven't really answered anything. Mind blowing indeed!
Yet this very concept contradicts both Special and General Relativity.
A fun thought experiment - shine a laser onto a mirror traveling at 0.95c
If time dilation is real, then what light frequency is reflected?
Of course, there is a frequency shift - and this contradicts relativity as time dilation performs lotentz transformations on everything to normalize light frequencies.
Of course, the energy in a photon is proportional, by square, to its frequency. Doppler shift is an exchange of energy as it pertains to an axis - the field opposite of motion is robbed of energy to supply the energy for the spectrum shift. In a wonky way of explaining it.
However, when there is not an opposite vector... Where does the energy come from?
The motion of the surface through the field.
At our velocities, the change in frequency is not noteworthy and the energy lost is negligible... But turn up the speed, and things start getting weird. If you are going near the speed of light, then the IR of your body hear is blue shifted to near gamma radiation levels for every quanta exchanged. The red-shifted photons going the other direction can't counterbalance this even remotely, and the net effect is hitting a wall as the energy of the gamma ray burst you've become is sucked from your velocity.
However, if I were to lock you inside a box, this effect is completely nullified on you, and is displaced to the box. If a box was able to act as a maxwell's demon and convert perfectly all energy radiated onto it into some other form of energy, it could theoretically move at the speed of light... Though there is an upper practical bound as things approaching the speed of light begin to interact with that field - specifically virtual particles in the ground state which lead to the formation of exotic particles or, if you actually got close enough to the speed of light, the formation of WIMPs - or "planck matter" as I like to call it, as it's a more proper classification of what makes up "black holes" - but I'm getting off into stuff that people aren't familiar with.
On the subject of fields and energy - an interesting scifi series took an unexpected route. Scientists were working on making a time machine. In the midst of it, they realized they would never be able to complete it and needed to develop a new category of human being in order to succeed. Thus, they created a series of clones which could share their intelligence and knowledge in a sort of collaborative consciousness. Each one knew what the others did and could operate on it intuitively. Dominant personalities did develop - a sort of "overmind" within the hive.
I thought it was an interesting development: "What is the status of the time machine development?"
"The clones are growing quite well."
"That's good to ... Wait-clones!?"
"Yes, hivemind superintelligence clones."
"You were supposed to build a time machine - who the hell approved these purchase orders!?"
"We have deemed this the only way."
Clones: proceed to not develop time machine because the fanservice character already has one and is god; take over humanity instead.
Funny how closely fiction resembles reality, sometimes.
@@EvilSapphireR it's the canvas, so to speak? Trying to understand...
whoa. learned about this like 15 years ago. thanks for the update!
I first watched Veritasium's vid about this subject: I wasn't convinced. But this video provided the crucial missing clue... well done!
man, your videos are always so simple but always go beyond what we learn in university, conceptually. I LOVE YOU
Holy what the farg this completely blows my intuitions out of the water.
And yet I'm not completely lost as to what's actually happening, with your explanation and visuals.
Sir, you are doing a FANTASTIC job with this series, and PLEASE keep up with it! :D
Right?! All the intuitions right out the window!
I can't wait to see more electrodynamics! I'm gonna have to binge-watch all the episodes again and again to really drill the stuff in so I know what to expect when I take the inevitable courses in uni. :)
Understanding what's happening is most of the battle. Learning the math that underpins it is just the last salvo.
I thought I understood electromagnetism.
Now I know that I knew it wrong.
But also, don't understand it the right way now, anyway.
Now I'm sure about being 100% ignorant on the topic :)
THIS is one of the best, if not the best science-related video I've ever watched! As a CS and Telecommunication student, I've never been taught such things, not to say in such an interesting and compelling way. Thanks, and I'll stay tuned for more content like this!
better explained than Veritasium and without the clickbaits, congrats on the great work!!
It makes sense to me, to be honest, only because I'm thinking about it from the point of view of how radio transmission works. It's not the electrons that magically wind up in my radio from station that I pick up but the field excitation as a result of the antennas coupling to those fields. Again, I'm a radio nerd so this stuff makes sense to me. lol
YES YES YES ABSOLUTELY YES. this video made all my work with radio transmission click in a sudden rush
Thx, I heard a loud *click* in my head. That was the explanation I needed. That also explains transformers.
I think your thinking of electromagnetic waves, while hes talking about electric field lines. Related but different ideas. In an electromagnetic wave (such as a radio wave) the electric and magnetic oscillation in the field are perpendicular to the direction of prorogation (as Poynting's law predicts) so the energy does actually travel in the direction where it will be used (the receiver). In the circuit however, as explained in the video, this is not true and the energy seems to travel in its own field.
Amazing, really well done. I am studying Electrical Engineering and in the Fall I finished Physics of Electricity and Magnetism and your videos have really helped me cement my education. Thank you again for making informative and easy to understand videos.
I appreciate how you carefully examine every idea, even the ones that others might say seem obvious or simple. It’s the mark of intelligence and creativity to do that. For years I myself have not found explanations about current, circuits etc to be completely clear and I think your video did a great job of showing how counterintuitive and complex circuits really are - I’m like, no wonder I never quite thought I understood it - I was right, I didn’t!
I love your content. Thank you so much for sharing!
I’ve come back to this video many times to get my mind blown. Today, I thought I’d tell you that.
Why didn’t we learn this in electrical engineering school? This is really mind boggling. Cool way you illustrate the energy flow. And great explanation. It’s so awesome to learn new things and find out that we only just scratched the surface of how the physical world really works.
Wow! dude, I just watched Veratasium video on this topic. Its amazing that you made about this almost years ago. So cool to know many things exist but we never know about them unless a mainstream guy tells about it. your channel is gem. and this video earned a subscriber.
Hell to the yeah... I support this Channel, keep dropping the Knowledge!!!🖖🏾👍🏽
After watching the video of Veritasium, beeing left a bit confused about how exactly the wire would heat up / how resistance works in this context, this video explained everything flawlessly. Thank you. This should be 1# Recommendation after watching the Video of Veritasium. I will subscribe for more. Thank you.
Having multiple perspectives/explanations of a topic is important... especially one as weird as this 🤓
@@ScienceAsylum In what form is the energy being sucked into the circuit from outside?
@@hipser Electromagnetic.
@@ScienceAsylum in retrospect that seems obvious :P Thank you. The sparkly visual doesn't emphasize that the field is bound to/generated from the wire.
Nick, what you do is art! I got used to you blowing my mind, but this video man...
Love you so much... You Literally Blew My Mind!.. Can't Wait To Watch Similarly Mind-Blowing Videos...
I’ve been studying and teaching physics for 20 years and this blew my mind.
Oh no here we go again, a crazy new way at profoundly understanding how things work, awesome video...
@Marcus Middleton I just commented basically the same as you. I'm an EE student and I feel ashamed of me for not actually understanding the real way a circuit works.
"Crazy" is a relative and subjective term...
Superb , came here from Veritasium video. You have already make it 2 years ago and I am blowing my mind right now. Now watch your videos regularly 🤠
Same , Saw Energy doesn't FLOW the way you THINK in the Veritasium comments and noticed I had already watched this. I'm going to watch it again in a few days after my mind settles. 😵💫 This is why it's the science "Asylum".
Positive current flow is a very useful concept for circuit analysis. Following current around a simple circuit makes more sense. For example a battery in series with a load - the battery going from negative to positive shows a voltage increase - continuing around the circuit we arrive at the load which goes from positive to negative - a voltage drop. It was likely for this reason that engineers stuck with hole flow. By the way, in ionic solutions, one of the charge carriers can be a positive ion. Nice video.
I love his videos..he explained this topic in less than ten mins.... He gave important terms there origin took time to explain and define them..I see a lot of videos assuming there viewers know every term and I think that's why your video are so informational great job
0:18
**watches this video while confusing the motion of charge with the motion of energy**
I came here after Derek from Veritasium's video. Helped a lot, thanks, specially the "the energy coming out of a power source doesn't have to be same that's going into your devices". The answer is in the fields, it's everywhere, literally.
Very actual atm 😍Love your explanation (and very funny 🤣) Keep it up!
Great video. An improvement suggestion for better understanding though : You represented the flow of energy as radially flowing into the wire. This is indeed true for all resistive wires. This radial inflow of energy corresponds to the energy lost as heat.
To bring the point home more powerfully, I would suggest you do a follow up with a superconducting wire. Now, this radial component will be eliminated, and most of energy will be flowing from one pole of the battery to the load, tangentially all around the wire, as per Poynting vector. There will be no more radial component of energy being dissipated inside the wire as it is superconducting.
Its as it a spatial mechanism of "cogs and gears" was activated around the wire. The wire is only akin to a 3D road channeling the energy.
Just learning about Poynting vectors in EM now and this absolutely blew my mind. Thank you for making this, it all makes so much sense to me now.
This is the coolest thing I’ve seen on CZcams in months. Melted my mind in the best possible way! Subscribed!
I’ve been looking for exactly this information / explanation. I might have to watch it five times but I’ll take it in eventually 😅
This video is extremely interesting, especially after watching Veritasium's "The Big Misconception About Electricity" video. Would be fun to see a collab between you two at some point.
I...need to watch that again to get it :D
My thoughts exactly! This has blown my mind
Same
Brave man!!
Okay, I'm struggling to breathe right now. I am an electronics engineer although I write software for a living. I thought I knew what you were going to say in this video and it would be a light video that confirms what I already knew. I was wrong. I watched it once at 1.7x and it broke me. I watched it a second time, this time at 1x and then I wondered how the resistance of a wire affects the flow of energy since it is in the form of EM waves and how the higher resistance of the filament makes the bulb glow. I watched it a third time and finally figured out how energy reaches the capacitors and inductors in a circuit and the answers left me with a whole new understanding of the world.
This took me a while to come to grips with too. To answer you though, the resistance is definitely a factor. It affects the angle at which the Poynting vector points at the wire/component. The more resistance there is, the more inward it points. For a low-resistance wire, the Poynting vector is mostly _along_ the wire, but is slightly inward (which is what I focused on in the video). For a large resistor, the Poynting vector is mostly inward. As for capacitors and inductors, they're wild! And they deserve their own video all together.
Could you explain how bulb glow etc. ? I ask myself same questions, but cant imagine it.
@@ScienceAsylum yeah! please make more videos about this. How power transforms into light, work, temperature etc.
@@uusserrrreesssuuu
Electric current supplies the energy to electrons (in the bulb filament), they go to higher orbitals but soon come down, to come down they must release energy, they release it by emitting photon. Lots of photons (emitted by many electrons on many atoms) is what you call light.
@@surajtiwari2614 yeah, i know how the bulb works, thnx. How the energy, that is OUTSIDE the wire transforms into light?
I think you did a better job at this than veritasium did this week. Thank you!
I found this 2 year old video better and more educational then the recent more flashy Veritasium video on the same subject. Good job!
This was fantastic. I am an A&P mechanic and electric energy flow was never described like this. I had to watch it 2 times but now am amazed. Very, very cool. Thank you for sharing.
I'm just here from New veritasium video just to flex that I came to know about this cool concept of energy from from this channel 2 years ago thanks to Nick.. The best science asylum teacher!!
absolutely brilliant explanation! thank you
This video explains concept better than any other video on the internet.