In Reply to: This turned my head around about how cables actually work. posted by mrod on February 4, 2022 at 10:17:18:
Current doesn't flow through wires. Current is a calculated value and is a scalar quantity. It has no direction or speed. So, essentially current is not alternating in an AC circuit. Only the electrons are alternating direction.
Electrons don't "flow" in audio circuits. They wiggle back and forth at very slow speeds, about a meter per hour, and they wiggle back and forth according to the audio waveform so they move on average only about a millionth of an inch at a time. Net velocity of electrons is zero. So you really can't say they're flowing. Electrons are the charge carriers, the current is a function of the number of electrons in a cross section of the wire. When electrons travel on one of the two wires + and - they travel in the opposite direction on the other wire.
The energy that exists outside the wire is not the signal. The energy outside the wire is the electric and magnetic fields, I.e., Poynting vectors. The signal is the electrons. I say it's the electrons because that's what causes the speakers to emit sound ultimately. The electrons moving back and forth in the speaker voice coil on the + and minus wires produce an alternating magnetic field that interacts with the speaker permanent magnet to push and pull the speaker diaphragm back and forth according to the audio waveform transmitted by the amplifier.
Almost everything else is a red herring.
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Follow Ups
- A few points - geoffkait 05:43:20 02/07/22 (16)
- RE: A few points - jea48 17:52:48 02/20/22 (11)
- RE: A few points - geoffkait 18:51:00 02/20/22 (10)
- RE: A few points - jea48 20:55:01 02/20/22 (9)
- Define signal, define energy, define Poynting vector - geoffkait 04:24:06 02/21/22 (8)
- Really... - jea48 06:32:09 02/21/22 (7)
- RE: Really... - geoffkait 08:53:40 02/21/22 (6)
- RE: Really... - jea48 10:12:39 02/21/22 (5)
- Really? - geoffkait 04:10:39 02/22/22 (4)
- RE: Really? - jea48 12:07:23 02/23/22 (3)
- RE: Really? - geoffkait 12:57:54 02/23/22 (2)
- Ralph Morrison would strongly disagree... - jea48 13:34:00 02/23/22 (1)
- Actually he agrees with me - geoffkait 17:07:24 02/23/22 (0)
- I disagree with that - DrChaos 15:50:29 02/11/22 (3)
- RE: I disagree with that - geoffkait 16:51:04 02/11/22 (2)
- current - DrChaos 18:41:49 02/11/22 (1)
- RE: current - geoffkait 03:47:31 02/12/22 (0)