Also, how far can electric current go before it is completely lost?
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As for the second question, there’s no hard limit, but there’s only so much resistance that a particular current will be able to push through before it’s *effectively* gone.
As for what resistance is, we need to understand what current is in the first place. Whenever you have a large structure of atoms, their atomic bonds have some ability to let electrons move from one atom to the next. That movement is electricity, and metallic bonds are the most forgiving for letting electrons jump back and forth. However, materials like wood (which is a series of hydrocarbon chains) are 1) sharing fewer electrons to make their bonds, and 2) have much more discrete molecules rather than how an iron bar is just a whole bunch of atoms stuck together. So every time an electron wants to get to the next wood molecule, it’s a lot harder to change than just moving around the next atom.
It’s analogous to friction. Essentially the electric current “bumps into” the atoms/molecules in the conductor and this resists the flow, just like friction resists the motion of a physical object.
The “distance” the current can go is complicated but the four most important ideas would be A. it depends on the strength of original current, strong currents go farther, B. it depends on the resistance of the material it’s traveling through which in turn is based on the composition of the material (copper wire, vs gold vs aluminum, etc) and the physical size of the conductor. C. the type of current, alternating vs. direct voltage currents travel different (alternating is better for long distances, direct for short) and D. the purity of the current, something like a telephone or internet wire gets subject to outside interference that might render the signal useless, even if it’s still detectable.
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