How Right IS Veritasium?! Don't Electrons Push Each Other??

Great job editing our conversations! I think it represents our main points well. And the whiteboard animations make things much clearer - nice work!

I like that you both understood the question better by your discussion.

ElectroBOOM just gave us a master class in how to conduct yourself as a scientist as well as a person. He wasn’t afraid to admit when he was wrong, was open to ideas that seemed to contradict his own, but also stuck to his guns and was able to incorporate the new ideas to agree with his already established ones.

Derek`s explanation of currents flowing over wires much reminds me of how currents flow through our bodies: by subtle disturbances of the charges around a membrane. It`s as if in our bodies the inside of the wires, being electrically neutral, serve other cellular functions, thus making for much better use of space and allowing for "intelligent wires" which change their properties based on how cell membrane and other changes induce changes in the ambient surrounding the membrane and the membrane properties.

Great discussion!

While getting my undergrad in EE i was always conflicted by these questions. Then when i started making semiconductors(TFTs) it just clicked. Conductivity is determined by either electron density or electron mobility. The electric fields are what is providing the work. Moving electrons create more fields which increase the fields hence why we have propogation delay in signals. High electron mobility means the electrons can follow the fields longer before crashing which means higher conductivity.

This was such an epic back and forth I learned more from both of you than I could have learned from just one or the other

Awesome discussion - reading up on skin-effect in AC Transmission lines - the traditional model is quite effective in explaining so many of the practical questions around electricity…

The issue with those kinds of questions, is that they are overly simplified. Which always leads to endless discussions. The discussion perfectly shows that as well.

The amount of respect you show Derek is really admirable, it is so easy for people (me included) to reject ideas that contradict our views. Props to you for looking into this with genuine interest

These discussions end up being muvh more exciting than the original videos! Thanks for sharing them.

I think it's great to see you clarifying your points of view but both being willing to learn.

very interesting discussion! 👏 looking forward to see your test!

I really love how one video by Veritasium triggered this whole peer review and productive discussion process. Especially because we, the audience, normally aren't shown that incredibly important part of science. Being wrong, or just being misunderstood, and needing to elaborate. Discuss with fellow scientists, come to new conclusions, and be able to explain better than before. All we are usually presented are the conclusions that remain at the end of this process. Not this time. Veritasium, Electroboom, Steve Mould, and all the others made this so much better than just explaining a physics problem, by showing us how scientists interact with each other. Thank you!

The point about charges outside the conductor is an important one for some circuits. A good example is that I learned when setting up my sound system that you want to run the power cable for the amplifier on the opposite side of the car from the audio cable from the head unit to the amplifier. The reason is the power cable draws a strong enough amount of current from the battery that the electromagnetic field will actually cause interference with the audio signal, which in turn causes "dirty sound" as a final result.

Awesomely FUN as well as nuanced & HELPFUL interaction between the two Wonderfully Charged Fields known as ElectroBOOM / Mehdi and Veritasium / Derek respectively !!! BRAVO !!!

An amazing conversation, and the editing adds a lot of context someone might need to fully understand it. Great video!

Probably a whole lot of us older nerds remember literally being taught to think of the wire as a tube full of ping pong balls (or marbles) pushing each other through a tube. I'm sure at least a couple of our teachers understood this as a model through which to visualize the process, but lots of them and us (including me back then, I'm positive) took it as an actual description of what the electrons were doing. Kind of how most people believe atoms are tiny spheres with tinier spheres rotating around them.

This is a nice eye opener. I always thought from my school lessons that electrons are flowing like a stream of water from the sea of electrons in a conductor material. But we were taught in biology that electrical charge or action potential propagates in a somewhat similar manner but here electrolytes (Na, Ca, K ions) create charges.

This was super interesting to watch