If electricity is faster than the speed of sound why does it not make a sonic boom?
In: 463
Electrical conduction is less like screaming so loud they hear you in the next town and more like making a phone call, where the sound of your voice is carried bit by bit along the wire. Sound is moving molecules forward. An electric current does not push molecules forward, but passes charge from atom to atom faster and farther than a single electron can move great distances.
As a counterexample, the boom of thunder is NOT the sound of electrons moving through the air. Thunder is the sound of air moving away from the electrical current because the air got HOT (50,000F) instantly. Thunder is a sonic boom, but because of heat not electricity. Thunder is technically the same as the sound of a bomb, which has no electricity at all.
Latest Answers