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Puzzler - sort of - well, it puzzles me

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Cliff321

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Where do the electrons go?
I know they are not consumed ( conservation of mass and all that) when they run a motor or light a lamp etc but there is an application that has me stumped.

Water heater elements and electric stoves.

What happens to the little buggers?

Power at 120 VAC comes in along two opposed lines where they meet in the heater element and the frustrated little electrons generate all manner of hotness almost like Charlieze Theron but different.
But there is no neutral carrying electrons back to the main and off to ground.

Yes there is a ground wire but no neutral attached directly or indirectly to the elements. Neither is the ground attached to the elements either.

What happens to all those electrons?
 
Oh OK so it's the rubbing back and forth. Hmmm
Thanks for the educational video.
I could have watched that a thousand times ( really I could not possibly do that I could barely get through one time) and not have seen the educational element of it until you put it in context. Brilliant.

And when the power is turned - - off - - - it's like this?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHsip5xOenQ
And the little buggers just lie down waiting for more amperes to shove them back and forth again?
Do you think they have tea?
 
And the little buggers just lie down waiting for more amperes to shove them back and forth again?
Do you think they have tea?

No, they find the nearest lady-atom and keep going around and around locally. You give them a rest by dropping the temperature to 0 Kelvins. They are busy little smurfs (that is why electricity is blue).

EDIT: I think that was load of bull* about giving electrons a rest when temp goes to absolute zero.. need to re-think that one.
 
Next you will ask how to spot a lady-atom.. well, it is the one with a hole in it.

03403.png
 
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You like her...me too ;)

Regards,
tvtech

Yeah.. she resists all the rubbing, but I keep rubbing and things heat up. (drinking beer here.. don't moderate too much. This is fun thread)
 
Hi,

Wow, the forum must be experiencing quite a lull this week if all we have to talk about is anthropomorphized electrons...and even of a specific gender no less :)

<big chuckle>
 
Hi,

Wow, the forum must be experiencing quite a lull this week if all we have to talk about is anthropomorphized electrons...and even of a specific gender no less :)

<big chuckle>

Haha.. Would you be more comfortable with homeless electrons looking for a hole to spend the night at? I think that some electrons are married and have to stick with the atom they are married to. Some electrons are single and they wander around looking for that random hole.. hopefully they find it and move on to find the next one. That is power. Sometime a single electron gets married and can not move around looking for free holes anymore. You need magnets to separate them. Keep them singles going. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDQOvzFetxs
 
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Most of the electrons in the earth are tied up within the atoms, as mister T mentioned. Insulators have all their electrons tightly bound, which is why you can't knock them loss, even with very high voltages. It's only a relatively few electrons in conductors and ionized gases that are free to move with an applied magnetic or electric field.
 
Think of the electrons as a circle of bumping cars. They really don't 'flow'.

Then while we're at it "conventional current' goes from Positive to Negative. The electrons go the other way. Ben Franklin got a fundamental principle wrong and it USUALLY doesn't matter.
 
............................

Then while we're at it "conventional current' goes from Positive to Negative. The electrons go the other way. Ben Franklin got a fundamental principle wrong and it USUALLY doesn't matter.
Poor Ben didn't have any way to unambiguously determine the charge of the electrical current carriers so he made an arbitrary choice (which, of course, had a 50% chance of being wrong). It wasn't until 100 years later that they were able to identify the electrical charge carrier as negative (which were subsequently called electrons) by observing their characteristics in an evacuated tube.
 
Haha.. Would you be more comfortable with homeless electrons looking for a hole to spend the night at? I think that some electrons are married and have to stick with the atom they are married to. Some electrons are single and they wander around looking for that random hole.. hopefully they find it and move on to find the next one. That is power. Sometime a single electron gets married and can not move around looking for free holes anymore. You need magnets to separate them. Keep them singles going. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDQOvzFetxs

Hi there misterT,

You made me think of how desperate we are to understand nature that we dont really understand. If we dont anthropomorphize what we can not see then we something-else-ize it such that we can believe we know what it is. So if it is not that then i guess it is the other...one way or another we'll name it to something even if we dont really know what it is or how exactly it behaves. We have to humanize it some way or another so that it fits into our nice and neat and simple short form of the universe.
 
Hi there misterT,

You made me think of how desperate we are to understand nature that we dont really understand. If we dont anthropomorphize what we can not see then we something-else-ize it such that we can believe we know what it is. So if it is not that then i guess it is the other...one way or another we'll name it to something even if we dont really know what it is or how exactly it behaves. We have to humanize it some way or another so that it fits into our nice and neat and simple short form of the universe.

LOL..Ratch is just waiting for a thread like this. I know he is around. Go to town guys ;)

I promise I will not interfere. Have as much fun as possible.

And I still love you Ratch. In spite of your Pedantic ways ;)

Regards,
tvtech
 
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I have never thought about an electron being male and the atom is female but I think about SE* with a lady about every 17 seconds or with every pretty lady I see. I am happily married but I can still look and think.
 
Ben Franklin got a fundamental principle wrong and it USUALLY doesn't matter.

It isn't wrong, there is no reason you can't have a positive charge carrier (in fact, in some situations you do).

By getting it "backwards" he has actually done us a favour. If he had labelled things in reverse it would be easy for people to imagine that electrons ARE electricity, by having electrons go in the opposite direction to current it forces us to pay more attention and hopefully see what is really going on.

http://amasci.com/amateur/elecdir.html
 
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