How Fast Is The Speed Of Electricity In Mph

Lightning travels at around 220 000 miles per hour when traveling downwards from a cloud and then reaches a speed of 220 000 000 miles per hour when moving skyward on its return stroke.

How fast is the speed of electricity in mph.

The word electricity refers generally to the movement of electrons or other charge carriers through a conductor in the presence of potential and an electric field the speed of this flow has multiple meanings. Well it depends on what you mean by electricity the word electricity has more than one contradictory meaning so before we can talk about its flow we have to decide on which of several electricities we really mean for a discussion of electric current see below. More precisely the speed is 299 792 458 meters per second in a vacuum. This word is very general and basically means all things relating to electric charge.

Lastly a few people believe that electricity travels at the speed of light because they confuse the speed of individual electrons with the speed of the electromagnetic waves the electrons radiate. A flash of lightning is just 1 to 2 inches wide but it generates a massive amount of electricity that is equal to 300 million volts or 30 000 amps. Electrons are negatively charged. This is because electricity is electromagnetic radiation just like light.

This energy travels as electromagnetic waves at about the speed of light which is 670 616 629 miles per hour 1 or 300 million meters per second 2 however the electrons themselves within the wave move more slowly. What is the speed of electrons in electricity. This concept is known as drift velocity. Within the tiny chip electricity has to flow only a couple of millimeters and within an entire computer only a few feet.

It s the electromagnetic wave rippling through the electrons that propagates at close to the speed of light. Speed of electricity 1996 bill beaty how fast does electricity flow. Yet as fast as that is it is never fast enough. This inherent speed of mother nature is why computers work so fast.

The speed of electricity really depends on what you mean by the word electricity. Drift velocity the average speed at which electrons travel in a conductor when subjected to an electric field is about 1mm per second. Electricity travels at the speed of light which is 186 000 miles per second. I will assume we are referring to a current of electrical charge traveling through a metal wire such as through the power cord of a lamp.

However while an electron as an indivisible mass bearing particle cannot travel at the speed of light its effects can well nearly.