: if you disconnect a power cable, where does the electricity that is still in the cable go?

Question

: if you disconnect a power cable, where does the electricity that is still in the cable go?

In: 40

Answer 1

Electricity isn’t water. You’re not receiving a physical object. Electricity is energy.

The way it’s delivered is electrons jumping back and forth between neighbouring atoms. Think of it like dominoes. When you push a domino it’ll keep pushing the ones ahead of it, even though you only ever pushed the first one.

And what you get out pushing the dominoes isn’t extra dominoes, but a kinetic (physical) transfer of energy. Electricity works in much the same way. It’s just knocking existing electrons back and forth.