Theoretical Answer Needed !!

It just does!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1E6IfdUJn6s

If you can not get an explanation then I think this is because its a quantum effect.

Actually current has a good analogy with water.

Water flow also takes the path of least resistance.

It is guided by pressure.

The current is guided by Voltage. Means you need to look at your Voltage in the system and the current is a reaction to that.

I would not agree that current takes the path of least resistance.

It takes all paths that offer any form of conductance.

The total resistance, or the amount of conductance, of each individual path, and the voltage across it then determines how much current passes through it.

You also need to understand that the flow of current is not an orderly movement of electrons from one end of the circuit to the other. Many electrons that enter the circuit may never reach the other end as they are captured by an atom which then releases a different electron.

An electron in an unenergised Cu conductor (say a 1mm diameter wire) will move in random directions at a rate known as the "Fermi Velocity" which is a tad under 1600 km/sec.

Applying a sufficient voltage to cause a current of 10 amps to flow through that wire will produce an average axial electron movement - from one end of the conductor to the other - of only around 1mm/second for any particular electron.

This is known as "Drift Velocity".

Thank you My theory was most similar to yours . The resistors with the least resistance values would carry the most protons which would attract more electrons( current) it seems that this theory stands . If im wrong please anyone feel free to correct me

The term "carry", to me, implies movement. There is essentially no movement of protons, as they are bound up in the nuclei of the atoms, except in liquids and gasses where the atoms can flow. The vast majority of resistors (but not all) are solid devices, so no, current flow has very little to do with the numbers of protons.

The early resistors were made from a mixture of carbon and clay (which becomes ceramic when compressed and heated). For a given size and shape, a higher percentage of carbon and a correspondingly lower percentage of ceramic would result in a better conductor (lower resistance). The number of protons in carbon (6 per atom) is significantly smaller than the number of protons in a similar quantity (mass or volume) of any clay. There are many kinds of clay, but they are mostly composed of metal oxides, such as MgO (20 protons per molecule), Al₂O₃ (50 protons/molecule), and Fe₂O₃ (76 protons/molecule), and other oxides like SiO₂ (30 protons/molecule). Thus it is clearly NOT the number of protons that determines conductivity, but rather the strength of the bonds holding the electrons to the nuclei, and other more esoteric factors.

Conductive materials are bound or locked in an atomic lattice. It's the electrons that are free to move within the lattice that provide for conductivity.

In a wire electrons do not actually travel over its length, but they "bump" their neighbors as if in a chain to complete the circuit. Imagine a tube that represents a wire stacked with ball bearings in a line inside that tube. Tap one end of the bearings and the far end nearly instantly drops out. As a chain the velocity is quite high, on the order of 1/2C to nearly C, depending on the medium or lattice.

But as a single electron trapped in that lattice the drift velocity is much, much slower.

This is the individual electron-drift velocity inside the electric field and in a typical wire it is only about 0.025 cm/s.

Correct! I frequently used a tube full of marbles and one steel ball to illustrate the comparison between what I referred to as the signal velocity compared to the electron velocity.

I like that analogy.

More protons don't mean more attraction to current. The ease of an electron moving to and from the atom is what reduces resistance. So, copper has an electron sitting way outside of the nucleus and it's easy to move electrons in and out, therefore it's a good conductor. A larger atom may have more protons, but it doesn't conduct electricity as well.

There's a lot more involved, but I used a simple explanation. Maybe others can add to this.

Numbers of protons and electrons would always be equal in any uncharged material. So this mechanism cannot explain how the current gets adjusted to the resistance value as soon as it starts to flow.

In fact if observation of the starting current over a very short time period at the beginning could be made, current would probably not be related to resistance value but would only depend on electron pressure of source of electrons.

Electrons are not necessarily transported but only their motion is transmitted till the end of the conductors, like balls knocking the next balls in a collection of balls. It implies that the number of movable electrons available in the conductor would decide how much total motion or current flows.

Imagine this, electricity is the movement of electrons in a pathway (conductor) like the river stream. Like charges repel, unlike charges attract. You could imagine a hole as a positive charge particle attracting electrons to it. Electrons jumps from one hole to another towards the positive side of the current pressure or voltage potential.

Ceramic materials (Resistors) with high resistance to thermal and electrical conduction, usually is ionic bonded - this means the bonding between atoms of a ceramic molecule is Ionic. This means that electron to form a pair from one element to another were just borrowed from valence orbital. --this mean that you can not easily push the ionically bonded electrons to the hole potential at the other terminal.

You really need to study voltage and current divider theory in-depth while performing simple laboratory experiments so that you gain a complete understanding of how resistance/impedance of circuits affect current flow.

A simple analogy of parallel electrical circuits mimics that of attaching a "Y" hose bib fitting to a single water faucet and placing two separate buckets under the fitting with one bucket under each individual faucet so that no water is shared between the two buckets.

Then;

Open one of the faucets to a position of 1/4 open and the other faucet to the full open position.

Observe the difference in time that it takes each bucket to fill up.

Current flow in a circuit mimics water flow.

Both faucets/circuits will flow water/current but at different flow rates.

The faucet that is at 1/4 open presents the most resistance/impedance to flow and will therefore flow the least while the fully open faucet presents the minimum resistance/impedance to flow and therefore will flow the most.

In an electrical circuit the same phenomenon occurs with the current flow being regulated by the resistance/impedance of each individual circuit.

Voltage is the pressure impressed on a circuit to cause current flow.

Current flow is the result of voltage (pressure) applied to resistance/impedance.

Hope this helps.

Current does not see. It does not know. It just does.

Resistor, resistance how about the name of the device because it resists current flow.

Maybe you should start here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ohm%27s_law

Vrao,

With regard to the water flow analogy.

Unlike looking into the end of an energized electrical conductor, DO NOT look into the end of an energized water hose.

Your face will get wet.

It does not take the path of least reistance, it takes the path of greatest probability in the circuit of possibility.

You either simply believe it, or you don't, if you have not studied....!!

The best method is to enlist in a proper electrical/electronic education of some sort.

This question is probably covered on day one of "Electrics/Electronics 101".....e.g. REALLY simple basic (Ohm's Law) stuff.....

Actually, in Europe at least, its high school physics, I would guess, and may not even come up in a University course anymore....(guessing as its been MANY years since I was last in a Uni)

I certainly don't even remember covering Ohm's Law there, probably did, but I feel I was born knowing it!!, as it is such a part of my being.

Many others here will understand that fully and feel the same I would guess.....it makes learning "Kirschoff's laws" far easier to understand as well I feel....

See here:-

Kirchhoff's_circuit_laws

OK?

How for they know?

Simple answer: the electrons are not conscious or self-aware.

If they were they would be shocked.

My goodness! I'm shocked!

Ah! You must be the first self-aware electron.

I am sure more are coming! :-)

Wallah...I never thought electrons could think. But hey, what if they could, that's probably worth of research.

Hi Vrao,

Welcome to CR4. You have received some good answers (see the votes). In case you are looking for a deeper explanation, try here.

-S

Your question may have a relevance to static electricity discharge, a lightning strike for example. The voltage builds up sufficiently to break down the dielectric to discharge. This breakdown happens through the path of least resistance. Hence lightning arresters, which provide an easy path for dielectric breakdown.

Water analogies are accurate and a little easier to visualize than a bunch of electrons flowing through wires and resistors. Another analogy is a crowd of people attempting to leave after an event has ended. They all want to get out but there's a limited number of doorways. Each doorway can allow a certain number of people to exit each minute. Large doorways have less resistance to this flow of humanity, so more people naturally flow through them each minute. Small doorways have greater resistance and lower flows. People don't really care which doorway they use as long as they are all going to the same parking lot. They just move with the crowd and flow through whichever doorway gets them out the fastest.

it has to be like this :- firstly, the word 'current' has to be first defined here, the definition of current is 'flow of 1 charge or 1 volt from point A to point B having distance of 1 meter between them ,by over coming the resistance offered by medium (every medium has different resistance compared to each other) is called 'current'. now, volt is amount of charge and charge is higher numberof protons (+ve ions) in an atom against electrons (-ve ions). to keep it simple , assume flood of water (+ve charge) running through a pipe with a specific speed. if at the end of pipe you divide the flow with a reducer 'Tee' , one end with higher diameter and other with smaller diameter . now that the flow has its own speed and potential , it will try to maintain it by pushing water from more convineint passage . this is the same thing happening in current electricity .hope you got it ...

Many people use flowing water as an analogy to electrical current as a means of understanding your problem. Voltage is equated with pressure, current with flow rate, and resistance with flow reduction.

However, they may get bogged down with transferring equations from Ohm's Law to those in Hydraulics. Instead, take time to observe numerically how voltage, current, and resistance changes when arranged in parallel and in series.

For visualization, imagining resistance as split into two uphill pipes (parallel) or stacked uphill pipes (series). Alternatively, resistors can be seen as water thickeners that temporarily increase water thickness proportional to length. Either case, water flows to both parallel resistors with equal pressure before and after but with two different flow rates.

One thing that may be confusing is why does total resistance drop in parallel but increases in series. One way to get your head wrapped around that is to visualize parallel paths will increase the total surface area the electrons can flow. So even though you have more resistors, flow is divided into more paths to travel.

These analogies work pretty good in reminding you which formula applies.