Electrons

I don't have your full answer and I'm not sure I even fully understand your question. But, this might be a good way to get started.

The flow of electrons (or holes) and the flow of electrical energy are not the same thing. The propagation velocity of electrical energy in many wires will be somewhere around 3/4 the speed of light. It has been many years since I calculated the speed of electron flow but my faint memories make me want to suggest that you could walk faster.

the flow of current is due to the flow of electrons right.In a metal conductor when connected to a battery once the first atom in the metal release the electron it becomes +ve and hence the electron flows from atom to atom and the current flows.after this first instance if the atom has no free electron then how it conducts thats my question.

the atom becomes positive and has no free electrons ..
Just follow your own argument bu assume the First atom gets an electron from a battery terminal and the last atom dumps an electron into the other battery terminal.
The only reason the first atom would have no free electron is if it's connected to an insulator or a connection which is not at a higher voltage, in which case you are quite correct and a current will not flow.
So you are right... current won't flow unless you connect a battery, and that's what powers the very first atom in the chain.
Del
_{I don't care if you think that I think you are doing your home work.}

ya if an atom has no free electrons then how a conductor conducts.

in any insulator the atoms are tightly packed and has no free electrons thats why they did't conduct right.

"if an atom has no free electrons then how a conductor conducts" - as Del said, if there are no electrons coming in from e.g. a battery, then it doesn't conduct. It is still called a conductor, because it has the ability to conduct.

i am talking about a conductor connected to a battery

i think you don't understand my question

while conducting once the electrons flows from one end of the conductor to other end all the atoms becomes positive now any of the atom in the conductor does't have free electrons

now without free electrons how??

the atom after loosing the free electron how the atom gets again the free electron which makes the metal to conduct.

I think you don't understand our answers.

As an electron leaves one end of the conductor (moving towards the other end), the resulting 'hole' is filled by an electron from the battery. The total charge on the wire remains neutral.

We understand your question just fine.
Lets number the electrons 1,2,3,4,5,6 etc (assuming electrons flowing to the right).
Now instead of starting your argument from electron 1.
Simply start your argument from electron 4 and you will see it gets its electron from 3 and so on all the way back to the battery or other power source.

If you still don't get it, go back to your original question and take away your 'next atom ' (... electron gets attracted to the next atom and hence the current...) and you have the same problem, it won't conduct.
Putting it simply the electron just comes from the previous atom! It then goes to the next atom.
If there is no previous or next atoms there will be no current.
Del

1 gets from 2 and 2 from 3 and it goes on like this after giving out the free electron it has (any atom 1 or 2 or 3) the current flows from 1 to 6 now all those atom becomes positive now all those atom from 1 to 6 wont have the free electrons wright or wrong??

if its wrong how ??

In this simple model, the atom at the end which loses its electron to its neighbour gains a new one from the battery!

If it's easier to imagine, you could say that an electron from the battery displaces an electron from the first atom, pushing it onto the second atom and so on. The electron on the atom at the other end of the wire is pushed into the other terminal of the battery.

WRONG.
Are you having a laugh?
Read you own post... as you explain it if 2 give an electron to 1 and receives one from 3, so it is still neutral.
If 123456 pass a single electron along, 1 gets it from one battery terminal and 6 gives it back to the other battery terminal. No electrons are created, destroyed or hurt during this process, all atoms retain the same overall charge.
Each atom gives 1 and receives one.
If you start out with 3 pigs...
I give you a pig and you then give a pig to your neighbour.
How many pigs have you got now?
3! Same as you started with.
Del
(Now if I can only get my pig battery to work properly...)

why do you think the insulators don't conduct is it because the atoms in the insulator (for example wood) does't have any free electrons to give out or the atom is neutral and does't able to receive free electrons. it should wright but it did't...

compare this with same neutral atom in the conductor after giving out the free electron here what happens you were saying here the neutral atom accepts the free electron but it should't wright

i m here not to laugh or do anything else but to learn if you don't want to answer then don't

Could it be that you are confusing the flow of energy through a conductor with the physical movement of particles through a conduit?

I don't have a clue why you don't get it.

The atoms in an insulator aren't close enough to allow the flow of current in any usable amount. Think density here. It's the same reason a vacuum doesn't conduct heat.

Insert facepalm here> <.

how does a neutral atom accepts an electron in conductor or an insulator which conducts after a temperature breakdown.

I'm sorry. I can't help you.

What we have here is failure to communicate. (Cool Hand Luke)

You're touching on some very critical concepts here on the difference between an insulator, a conductor and of course the intermediate realm of a semiconductor. To properly understand the details of why an insulator tends to not conduct and a conductor to easily conduct one must understand the fundamentals of Chemistry and valence electrons. It is also important to realize that the valence state of the molecule is the critical factor and not the valence state of individual atoms. This is why the oxide of most metals insulates despite the fact that all metals conduct. Many metals used as conductors have oxides that either weakly bond to the base metal or the metal does not readily form oxides in the presence of atmospheric oxygen. Similarly because polymer chains form from the correct collection of atoms that make repeating chains of sub-molecule filled valence shells the whole realm of plastics makes better than average insulators.

As I mentioned earlier, the explanation of what happens at an atomic level during conduction requires an understanding of many different models from different disciplines. The classical physics model I described earlier and that many here have mentioned is but one model that explains conduction.

Wrong.

Think of it as ping pong balls in a tube.

You push one in and one falls out the other end.

None will fall out or move if you stop pushing new ones in one end.

So you say the electron moves, but it only does so because a new one forced it to by taking its original position. This causes it to take another position, which causes it to take anothers position. This is electron flow or current.

In a highly conductive metal the spacing and arrangement of atoms, coupled with a compatible electron structure results in a portion of electrons having very low association with any particular nucleus.

This results in a portion of electrons in the material with high mobility. When current flows through this metal conductor, charges (as electrons) are introduced at one end as they are removed at another, so a sizable depletion or increase in electrons is not being created.

A temporary loss or gain of a few electrons spread out over a large group of atoms sharing a large group of electrons in a good conductor is far less severe than the loss or gain of a few electrons a couple atoms in an insulator.

i think now i got it i assumed there will be only one free electron in the atoms of the conductor but more than one free electron would be enough to conduct electricity wright.

Essentially metals that are good conductors have a portion of their electrons behaving as 'a sea of electrons'. These exhibit a high degree of freedom in that they are shared loosely among numerous nuclei allowing high mobility.

Current is still going to be a flow with charges entering at one end typically at the same rate as charges leaving another end, so a surplus of easily mobile charge particles is not a requirement to conduct electricity. It just makes it much easier.

Also as you say if an electron left an atom it would become positively charged.

Electrons are negatively charged and so would be attracted to this positive atom.

1. How does electricity flow
   
2. 
   
3. Electric current - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   
4. Electricity - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
   
5. What causes electricity to flow? - Yahoo! Answers

in all those websites there is no answer to my question..

Too bad. I think the answer is clearly there, you just can see it. Or don't recognize it.

It's kinda like "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't change his spots".

''Loose lips, shouldn't throw stones''

A mind is a terrible thing to waste. I wish I could find mine.

I wouldn't worry about it..

"The road to hell, wasn't paved in a day"

Oh Oh! you left out 2. He's not going to make the jump (missing electron).

How about this, no electrons leave their host atom, the valence electrons absorb energy until they reach a sufficient energy level and then release a quantum of energy which travels as a "photon" to another electron downstream which repeats the process, ala a bucket brigade.The electrons never leave their atom, they just move from one orbit or shell to higher (more energetic one) and then back to the original one.

Now there's a wild guess if I ever heard one.

How do you explain that the same magnetic field is generated when one ampere of current flows through a wire as when a stream of electrons flow through a vacuum chamber. Photons do not carry an electric charge. The flow of photons do not produce a static magnetic field. I'm also curious how one identifies one electron from another. You cannot put a bar code or serial number on an electron to say that it is from any particular atom or even molecule.

Maybe I'm being a little too harsh here. You're mixing in only a part of the quantum effects that actually happen. What your missing is that the photon's your referring to are the theoretical photons that shuffle an electron to higher energy orbitals from thermal actions. These electron movements do spread the spred the energy level required for inducing a current to flow, but still electons and holes do still move.

If you say so. Since you can't see or identify individual electrons you seem pretty convinced that they move from atom to atom. I am not sure. Since we only know the effects of energy but not what it is I'm open to all possibilities. It was sure simpler when all we had to consider was Newtonian.

Maybe it's magic.

Clarke's third law?

Quite right. Good show.

Picture a fire brigade. Everyone has a bucket to pass.

http://www.kididdles.com/lyrics/t003.html

The one that falls out goes around and jumps back in (the battery made him do it).

BruceFlorida and Graycav both got it right. Malar seems to miss the point that the current also flows through the source as well as the load and the conductors. Don't consider the conductor in isolation (no pun intended). As for insulators a megger is only a voltmeter measuring the volt drop across the insulator at the current which the insulator allows to flow through itself.

Somebody smack me if I'm wrong....(Post #46, this should be. Philly squeaked-in before me, above. Have read all the OTHERS, and, with the exception of one of lyn's posts, none has offered a "correction" to Malar's graphic, above!)

The graphic in Malar's post above depicts the flow of electrons INCORRECTLY (flowing from + to -)

Among lyns posted links is the correct description (at paragraph 3);
"When there is a difference in the overall charge of atoms between the two ends of a wire, the negatively charged electrons will flow toward the positively charged end of the wire, creating electric current."

Malar states in his Post 15 that in all lyn's LINKS (post 13) there was "no answer to his question." Perhaps that's because he doesn't understand where his MISUNDERSTANDING lies.

Electrical potential flows from the concentration of HIGHER electronegativity to the area of LOWER electronegativity ... (which condition reverses in a.c.)

Once this fundamental misunderstanding is corrected, THEN the OP might grasp how electron flow (versus hole flow) is actually taking place.

Meanwhile , a lot of "shotgunning" has been taking place...... Hope this helps.

I agree with ndt-tom that Malar accidentally went for CONVENTIONAL current, upon which all our electronic symbols rely. Electron movement is more popular now, but which ever mode, there still needs to be a complete circuit through the source. But as Redfred said we can look at conductive particles in a vacuum and they still need a return path.

Following the vacuum idea, where do the Sun's positive charged particles disappear to as they accelerate toward the heliopause? They must form part of an enormous circuit otherwise they would not be accelerating?? Do we call that hole flow too? Plasma is one hell of a good conductor, and tends to be full of ionised atoms (ions), rather than molecules.

In case you hadn't read it, Voyager could have spotted the other part of the circuit. NASA has detected the high energy electrons speeding towards the Sun.. from outside the solar system. Now back to good old copper...

"Exactly".... ... my post was emphasizing the ORIGIN of his misunderstanding.

His post (#5), as a followup to his original post, says:

Quote: "the flow of current is due to the flow of electrons right."

Then , he depicts the flow of current going from positive to negative.

Until he grasps the utter simplicity of hole-flow versus electron flow, and the "driving force" (electrical pressure, or "whatever" one wishes to call it) driving electrons to flow in the direction *from* higher electronegativity *to* lower electronegativity, in my opinion he will remail lost.

Best to all ~

In basic studies you can see in any electrical engineering books that flow of conventional current is opposite to the direction of flow of electrons which is from positive to negative.

I put positive negetive wrongly in my diagram i only sees it after posting it and i don't know how to edit it.

try to know your basics before criticizing someone

I've let this bit of confusion stand for too long. The solar wind (charged particles) are not accelerated to make a completed current flow circuit. These ions and electrons through multiple processes happen to have more than sufficient kinetic energy to leave the pull of the sun onto their way to the heliopause and beyond. These particles have reached escape velocity from the sun, they're not coming back. AFAIK These ions and electrons do not combine into neutral atoms prior to the heliopause and there is much speculation how much charge combination happens even at this deceleration zone. (Dimensions are literally getting astronomical now.) This is not to say that Birkeland currents don't happen with the sun or that most of the currents leaving the surface of the sun don't return along these paths.

I know that i made a mistake in that drawing

now you answer my question will i alredy got the answer yet i want to know your point

1.In a basic atom when it has large number of electrons compared to protons then its positive and the reverse negetive ion wright.

2.the flow of current is due to flow of electrons this is what i stuidied in basic electric engineering and they travel from higher potential to lower potential due to electro motive force wright or wrong??

3.when it has equal number of protons and electrons its neutral and won't allow any other electrons to enter or get out wright or wrong i dont know you answer me??

based on this i understand that the atoms in insulators has no free electrons thats why the did''t conduct current ?? because they don't let go any free electrons if its wrong then correct me??

4. while a metal or any conductor connected to a electric circuit

while conducting the atom in the metal loses the free electron from it while losing it will it becomes neutral if its not then why??

even now you guys don't understand me then its not my problem....

To reiterate: your Original Post says: "

"when it conducts for example in a metal conductor take a single atom in it when it conducts the loosely bounded valance electron gets attracted to the next atom and hence the current.....when this happens the atom becomes positive and has no free electrons at this instant then how the current flows continuously with out free electron??"

Now, in your post above (#50; question 3), you repeat your misunderstanding: "3.when it has equal number of protons and electrons its neutral and won't allow any other electrons to enter or get out right or wrong...?"

Just as water will continue to FLOW out from an elevated water tower (so long as the pipe is opened), a flow of electrons will continue to take place so long as there is a circuit THROUGH WHICH to flow, and a DIFFERENCE IN POTENTIAL across that circuit (*more* electronegative at the "pushing" end. *less* electronegative at the "other" end).

"Apologies", but (as with many others here), I just don't know where else to "go", insofar as assisting you, but perhaps here.

Wishing you all the answers you seek ~

'Charge' and 'current' are giving you some confusion.

'...3.when it has equal number of protons and electrons its neutral and won't allow any other electrons to enter or get out...'

The first part is correct. The second part (underlined) is not correct. A good conductor can have at a particular time, a positive charge, a negative charge, or it can be neutral. The same can be said of a good insulator.

'...4. while a metal or any conductor connected to a electric circuit

while conducting the atom in the metal loses the free electron from it while losing it will it becomes neutral...'

The underlined part is not correct. Two lines of thought might help here:

a. Consider the term 'free electron'. If it is 'free' it is not owned by any particular atom meaning no particular atom can 'lose' it. The term free electron in this sense does not indicate an excess of electrons to protons but rather a lack of attachment to any particular atom or molecule.

b. A useful approach often employed in explaining DC electrical circuits uses an analogy of a fluid system....

>>>The battery or current/voltage source is a pump.

Conducting lines are fluid pipes.

Variable resistors are throttle valves.

Capacitors are flexible, relatively impermeable membranes.

Pressure is equivalent to voltage.

Fluid flow (consider it as an incompressible fluid so mass flow rate or volumetric flow rate will work) is equivalent to current.

Large diameter pipes provide less resistance than small diameter pipes.<<<

Given this analogy, consider that when fluid flows through a pipe, the pipe does not empty. Instead, as much fluid is entering a section of pipe as is leaving the section. Fluid can flow at a stead state through a section of pipe at ambient pressure or at incredible pressure, and as long as the amount entering equals the amount leaving the pressure will remain the same.

In a similar way, charge is not depleted when current flows through a conductor.

1. No, when a atom has more electrons it becomes negative.

2. Not really. The flow of electrons is the current. Think water molecules to water flow.

3. No. The charge of the conductor is not what makes current flow or stop. Like the ping pong balls in a tube it takes an electron to move an electron. You cant just have one leave the conductor unless another one pushed it out. This means as electricity flows the conductor charge(of its atoms) remains the same. If I push you off a bike and instantly take your place the bike did not go riderless.

4. No. Because a conductor has free electrons this does not mean it has extra electrons. Having free electrons does not cause the conductor to be negative. Its like saying I have $50, but $5 is change in my front pocket which I will more easily separate from then the hard earned cash in my wallet. A atom with a neutral charge can have free electrons. They still equate to that atom to cause neutrality, but are easily shifted to another atom when pushed on by yet another electron.

If anything an atom in a conductor would start out neutral. Then gain an electron and become negative which would move that extra electron to the next atom and could possibly become a self perpetuating circuit? Either way it takes one to move one, remember that and it should make more sense.