How does electricity get stored ? How does it move down a cable? And will I slow it down if the cable is curved or bent (the way water will in a hose)
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Electricity gets stored in other forms of energy. For example, a battery consists of two materials, one that that is given a lot of electrons (negative ion), and one that either had its electrons taken away (positive ion), or that is electrically neural and is able to receive a lot of electrons. When the two materials are connected, energy is transferred through the connecting wire from the negative ionic material (positive terminal) to the other terminal (typically considered a ground). This is an example of DC power
Hydroelectric dams convert energy stored in the motion of water into electricity by using waters to spin massive magnets. Oscillating (moving back and forth) magnetic fields generate electron motion in nearby conductors like wires. This is an example of AC power.
Electricity is transferred by electron motion. Electrons move relatively slowly down a wire, but their jostling and bumping as they move sends a stream of energy through the wire (think of like a continuous domino effect).
If you restrict the cross section area of a wire of a wire (pinching or shaving a bit off), it will increase the resistance by various amounts.
The way I learned batteries are chemical electrical storage devices using ions. In this case say lithium ions which is a fancy way of saying lithium acid with sodium ions for the other side dependent on design. Ions have an extra electrical charge and when used the sodium and the lithium combine to a neutral state while the extra electron travels out. Bending doesn’t slow it down as electrons travel the speed of light. Electrons do move thru wires like a train but over time they lose electrons as heat and entropy
Electricity is a general term used to define energy in the form of charged particles. Charge is what is stored. Before I go there, I’ll need to define a few terms.
A circuit is a path from high potential to low potential (voltage). Technically the opposite, but we use hole flow to better analyze circuits.
At any point on a circuit, the amount of charge through that specific point per second is called an Amp (represented by I) 1 Amp = 1 coloumb per second.
A coloumb is a measurement of charge. (1/(1.602176…×10^-19)). This gets into particle physics, which is out of the scope of the question. But a coloumb is a measurement of charge.
Charge is stored in capacitors (Or batteries, but those batteries are often a result of chemical engineering and way out of my expertise). Capactiors have parralel seperated by a dialectric (non conducting substrate). The amount of charge a capacitor can hold is measured in farads.
A farad is defined by the 1 coloumb (charge) per 1 volt (electric potential).
As far as current slowing down. Yeah, a little bit, but current flows at the speed of light (multipled by some conductivity factor between 0 and 1) so any minor change on speed would be pretty null.
Electricity is commonly stored chemically by using the bonds between atoms in a molecule. Breaking the bond releases one or more electrons which is a force-carrier for electric charge. When recharging a battery, the atoms are joined back together. This isn’t the only way, though, there are also heat-based and gravity-based ways to store electricity, but they are much less common.
Electricity moves along a conductor when there is a difference in electric charge — one end is less negative than the other. In reality, it is actually the holes that move in the opposite direction and the result is more balanced electric potential along the ends, but it is usually easier to reason about a circuit in terms of the electric charge moving from high electric to low electric potential.
You won’t noticeably slow it down if you bend the cable. Technically, electric charge does gather at bends more than it does along a straight wire, but at the scale that power cables operate it isn’t really noticeable. When designing circuits at the scale of CPU chips where wires are very very narrow it is something to take into account, but you won’t ever cut off a circuit by bending the power cable like a garden hose. You do have to be careful about bending too much or too often as this can cause physical wear, possibly stripping the insulation around the wire or causing it to separate (especially near the connector). This is why a lot of cables have extra rubber or plastic where it terminates, to help prevent it from being bent so much that it pulls apart.
I’m going to focus on the “curve” part of your question because it’s actually really super interesting. The short answer is “yes”, and the longer answer is “but it’s completely not like what happens with a hose”.
You’ve probably seen cables with a **ferrite bead**: a [cylindrical “bump”](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrite_bead) where the cable loops about the cylinder. This is just a wire that’s looped around and, for good measure, has a lump of stuff called ferrite. The ferrite isn’t actually essential to what happens, but it does make it work better.
Electricity and magnetism are closely related. When there’s a surge of electricity, that creates a surge of magnetism. And surge of magnetism will create a surge of electricity. This is how electric motors work: the electricity creates a magnetic field which pushes against the magnets in the motor. It’s also how a generator works: when wire spins near a magnet, the magnet causes an electric current to flow.
When you make a loop in a wire (and especially if there’s a lump of ferrite which makes it work better), then any sudden inrush of electricity will be converted to a magnetic field. That field will slowly decay. The result is that a sharp pulse of electricity gets converted to a slow mushy pulse.
So – the electricity isn’t really slowed, but it is really slowed, but it depends on whether it’s a slow ramp-up of current or a sudden shock. And the cause is 100% not like why a curve in a water pipe slows down water.
You might picture electricity like a flow of water in between two water storage.
High voltage -> Lot of difference in height in between the two storage
Hight current -> The flow travel in a bigger tube
High energy -> Combination of the two previous ones
High Energy stock ? -> Big water storage.
So when it comes to electricity it’s all about storing electrons on a side, and a place with a lot of cozy-electron comfortable space. How you create this spaces is chemical (for battery).
Then you stuck the place together, give them an entry/exit point and you get an electron path. Harvest that electron’s path (like you can harvest the energy of water to make turn things) and you got your electricity.
Rechargeable things, have a chemistry that allows to remove the electron in their cozy space and put some new motivated ones in the electron’s tank.
Sadly, they are not really clean at all time. With time they tend to break a few chairs around, spill beer on the floor, etc … which make the place less entertaining and the ‘motivation’ to come here goes down. That’s how we get battery that don’t last forever.
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