Electroboom: How Right IS Veritasium?! Don't Electrons Push Each Other??

[PlainName]

So, no. "It's raining" and "Tt's sunny" are not two different points of view. One is right, the other one isn't.

So how do you get rainbows?

[electrodacus]

Anyway, I found the links to Lewin's statement of the problem:

Lewin is just a clown that has not even basic understanding of physics.
I watched a bit of the videos (not fully) first part of each enough to know what the problem is.
This is the same mistake he made when electroBoom tried to correct him (not sure what happened with that interaction).
In any case it seems he got the correct solution from one profesor is just that he is way to lost to understand it.
There will be an electric current induced in the superconductor and that will create an opposing magnetic field. That is how the magnet or the superconductor coil can levitate when using a superconductor. With normal conductor that has resistance the same thing happens but since there is loss as heat it can not levitate it just slows the fall down.

Maybe you have seen the typical experiment where you drop a magnet through a copper pipe (if not search on youtube) and you can easily notice how much the drop of the magnet under gravity is slowed down by the opposing magnetic field.
If that pipe was made of a superconductor material so no resistance the magnet will never exit the other side as there will be no loss with zero resistance.
There are plenty of examples of levitating superconductor rings above magnets so you can search for that also.   

[Sredni]

So, no. "It's raining" and "Tt's sunny" are not two different points of view. One is right, the other one isn't.

So how do you get rainbows?

What took you so long? 

I confess that I was expecting something on the lines of "It can be raining in NY and be sunny in LA", but I guess it's equivalent.
Can you tell me what time is it?

[PlainName]

Somewhere, it will shortly be beer'o'clock.

[rfeecs]

...once in the superconducting material they continue 'by inertia'

Hm.  I wonder how they turn a corner.  Apparently they aren't like sheep, guided by the field from the surface charge.

Perhaps they are guided by the surface potential or some other quantum mumbo jumbo.

Or perhaps they hug the wire.

No wait.  It must be related to charging a capacitor.

It must be too much beer'o'clock if that's possible.

[Naej]

So what makes the current go: either you inject electrons from a normal conductor (and you can then close the superconducting loop after if you want),

Which is what I wrote above: you need a resistor (the finite conductivity conductor).

or you bring a magnet close.

And there will not be current or field inside. Basically the current due to the surface charge that kills the field inside is all you get in a superconductor. In classical electrodynamics we can consider an impossible sheet of current of zero thickness (we can also consider infinitesimal charge quantities, if we wish). In the real world, in a real superconductor, the surface current will be confined to a few atom layers. But this is a far cry from stating that there is a current inside. That fraction of a micron is the real world approximation of the zero depth surface sheet.

There is a discussion of the difference between perfect conductors and superconductors in Ramo, Whinnery, VanDuzer (sec. 13.4 Perfect conductors and superconductors, p. 676 on the second edition).

Anyway, I found the links to Lewin's statement of the problem:

Is there current in power lines? In a 0.1mm thick copper wire carrying 300 MHz current? Or "just on the surface"?
Here you can see that the wires at LHC are 6 µm thick (probably because of manufacturing constraint/resisting mechanical load), so "everywhere" is the surface. https://lhc-machine-outreach.web.cern.ch/components/cable.htm

And yes all this is explained in your book, and essentially any book talking about skin effect. Which is why Lewin acting as if this were an impossible task even for professors/Nobel prize winners is, to say the least, a bit silly.

[Sredni]

...once in the superconducting material they continue 'by inertia'

Hm.  I wonder how they turn a corner.  Apparently they aren't like sheep, guided by the field from the surface charge.

Perhaps they are guided by the surface potential or some other quantum mumbo jumbo.

As I said, superconductors are quantum beasts. (And that's why I avoid using the term superconductor and use instead perfect conductor, or even 'very high conductivity' conductor when I want to ignore losses in the cables).
We can no longer think of electrons as charged marbles. You need to consider the interaction, the scattering, of the electron wave with the periodic potential of the lattice (and then add in some other quantum mumbo jumbo like Cooper pairs and quantization of fields). Even in ordinary conduction - in real copper at ambient temperature - the model of the charged marble breaks down. We say that the resistor gets hot because these marbles hit the lattice ion, but it's incorrect. The energy is transferred by electron-phonon scattering and it's dominated by the level of impurities and dislocations. In both cases the potential of the lattice... follows the lattice.
Things get complicated pretty quickly.

Maybe an oversimplified explanation could be: if the current is bounded to be on the surface - because there could not be a static B field associated with a flowing current inside - then the electrons are bounded to follow the surface.
I prefer perfect conductors that can sustain a static B field inside, so the electrons can still be considered charged marbles (it's a simplification but it allows me to remain in the realm of classical ED). How do they follow the curves?
If we look at a perfect conductor as the limit of a resistive conductor for resistivity ---> 0, there will be an infinitesimal electric field that will make 'em steer.

The case of exactly 0 resistance is some sort of singularity, and it's nothing new either. We can see it in every single circuit where we neglect the resistance of interconnection. it's like asking yourself "how is it possible for current to flow from Vcc to the collector of the transistor if there is no voltage drop between those two points?"
You can avoid the paradox by invoking lumped circuit modeling, where the interconnects have zero dimension, or you can explain it as the limit case for resistance-->0.

Physically, in classical ED, it might be possible (I have to think it through) to explain the steering by considering what happens when the electrons don't steer: excess charge will appear on the surface (where the electrons "go for the tangent") and that charge will exert a force that will prevent other electrons from not following the shape of the conductor. This very fast feedback will constrain all electrons to follow the cable.

[Sredni]

Is there current in power lines? In a 0.1mm thick copper wire carrying 300 MHz current?

Why are you talking about high frequencies? The circuit we are talking about is DC (EDIT: in case we were talking about Derek's). What is the skin depth in copper at DC? What about 1 microhertz? Or even 1 Hz? (EDIT: how fast do you think Lewin's coil is brought into the field?)

Here you can see that the wires at LHC are 6 µm thick

Why you people keep turning simplifications into overcomplications?
Both in Derek's and Lewin's problems the term superconductor is used to avoid the unnecessary complication of losses in the cable, in order to focus only on the phenomena of interest. What's next? A thermodynamic analysis on how it is possible to maintain cryogenic temperatures without altering the fields in the coil? Or a discussion of why Derek did not take into account the temperature profile of the atmosphere and the effect of Van Alllen's (or was it Van Halen?) belt when his cable reach halfway to the moon?

[Naej]

Is there current in power lines? In a 0.1mm thick copper wire carrying 300 MHz current?

Why are you talking about high frequencies? The circuit we are talking about is DC (EDIT: in case we were talking about Derek's). What is the skin depth in copper at DC? What about 1 microhertz? Or even 1 Hz? (EDIT: how fast do you think Lewin's coil is brought into the field?)

Derek circuit is not at DC (it's a mind trick), the effect he talks about is at ~1m wavelength (and you can see it on the oscilloscope).
The reason why I used 300 Mhz in a 0.1 mm wire is to get a similar ratio between current depth and wire radius in a copper and superconductor wire.

Here you can see that the wires at LHC are 6 µm thick

Why you people keep turning simplifications into overcomplications?
Both in Derek's and Lewin's problems the term superconductor is used to avoid the unnecessary complication of losses in the cable, in order to focus only on the phenomena of interest. What's next? A thermodynamic analysis on how it is possible to maintain cryogenic temperatures without altering the fields in the coil? Or a discussion of why Derek did not take into account the temperature profile of the atmosphere and the effect of Van Alllen's (or was it Van Halen?) belt when his cable reach halfway to the moon?

Definitely not in Lewin's. He says E=B=0 inside the superconductor, one of the most well-known fact (or "fact") about them.
If Lewin wanted, he could have taken a wire with a 50 cm thick copper wire, or 5 cm steel wire with a more reasonable size so that it works at 1Hz.
It is, after all, a thought experiment.

[aetherist]

I was talking about the surface charge: the excess electrons or lack thereof that - along with the original external field generated by the battery - shape the electric field inside the conductor in such a way that it be directed along the conductor axis and will have a magnitude that satisfies Ohm's law in its local form.

So what happens with a superconducting wire?  Presumably the surface charges make the field inside the wire zero.  So what makes the current go?

Ah. Superconductors are quantum beasts. (Well, technically even ordinary conduction requires quantum theory to give quantitative agreement).
If we stay in the realm of classical ED, we can consider a perfect conductor as the limit of a resistive conductor for sigma->infinity. You need an infinitesimally small field to make the electrons move. But it can get tricky. Last year (?) Lewin posted a problem with a superconducting ring in a changing magnetic field. Basically what we call Lewin's ring but without resistors. What will happen? Only two people, among all those who were exposed to the problem (and they included several physics professors to which Lewin had emailed the problem) gave the correct solution. One is a professor in a University in Switzerland (IIRC) and the other is George Hniatuk (he has a youtube channel).

The solution is: no current inside the superconducting ring.

I had it wrong: my initial assumption was that the current would rise so rapidly - being a superconductor - that the small self inductance of the ring would act as a current limiter.  Then I saw George Hniatuk's comment (Nope. No current inside) - and knowing how he knows EM - I realized he was right. (Math and Physics are different - in math you can create the induced electric field magically inside the superconductor, in physics you must justify its presence there. How do you place it in? Surface charge will redistribute in such a way as to prevent it from entering the ring).

But this is not the reason I am telling you this. In the video (I will add a link tomorrow, now I need to sleep), or in the comments, Lewin made a very interesting statement. That to initiate a current in a superconducting ring you need... a resistor. You start your magnetic mumbo jumbo with the resistor inserted - and it's the field in the resistor that makes the electron go - once in the superconducting material they continue 'by inertia', and only after the current is established, you switch to a full superconducting ring.

Pretty crazy, uh?

Komplete krapp. Lewin is an idiot.
My electon electricity is on the surface of the conductor. Game over.

[electrodacus]

Why you people keep turning simplifications into overcomplications?
Both in Derek's and Lewin's problems the term superconductor is used to avoid the unnecessary complication of losses in the cable, in order to focus only on the phenomena of interest. What's next? A thermodynamic analysis on how it is possible to maintain cryogenic temperatures without altering the fields in the coil? Or a discussion of why Derek did not take into account the temperature profile of the atmosphere and the effect of Van Alllen's (or was it Van Halen?) belt when his cable reach halfway to the moon?

The one that overcomplicates things is you.

Questions is simplified to:  Is the electric current traveling through the wire or outside the wire?
If you agree with everybody else "stream of charged particles" then that can only happen inside the conductor in Derek's experiment.
I need to specify Derek's experiment because you can have a stream of electrons even though vacuum like I showed for the vacuum diode or cathode ray tube but that is not happening at 20V with 1m between the wires.
 
Electrical power is the product of electrical current and electrical potential and electrical energy is electrical power integrated over time.
Since you have electrical current in the wire you have electrical energy traveling through the wire.
Also there is no electrical current in that 1m air gap thus there is no electrical energy transferred through that air gap.

In order for you or anyone else to claim that energy travels outside the wire you need to prove that electrical current travels outside the wire and that means charge particles traveling in that 1m gap between the source and the load.

[aetherist]

I was talking about the surface charge: the excess electrons or lack thereof that - along with the original external field generated by the battery - shape the electric field inside the conductor in such a way that it be directed along the conductor axis and will have a magnitude that satisfies Ohm's law in its local form.

So what happens with a superconducting wire?  Presumably the surface charges make the field inside the wire zero.  So what makes the current go?

Ah. Superconductors are quantum beasts. (Well, technically even ordinary conduction requires quantum theory to give quantitative agreement).
If we stay in the realm of classical ED, we can consider a perfect conductor as the limit of a resistive conductor for sigma->infinity. You need an infinitesimally small field to make the electrons move. But it can get tricky. Last year (?) Lewin posted a problem with a superconducting ring in a changing magnetic field. Basically what we call Lewin's ring but without resistors. What will happen? Only two people, among all those who were exposed to the problem (and they included several physics professors to which Lewin had emailed the problem) gave the correct solution. One is a professor in a University in Switzerland (IIRC) and the other is George Hniatuk (he has a youtube channel).

The solution is: no current inside the superconducting ring.

I had it wrong: my initial assumption was that the current would rise so rapidly - being a superconductor - that the small self inductance of the ring would act as a current limiter.  Then I saw George Hniatuk's comment (Nope. No current inside) - and knowing how he knows EM - I realized he was right. (Math and Physics are different - in math you can create the induced electric field magically inside the superconductor, in physics you must justify its presence there. How do you place it in? Surface charge will redistribute in such a way as to prevent it from entering the ring).

But this is not the reason I am telling you this. In the video (I will add a link tomorrow, now I need to sleep), or in the comments, Lewin made a very interesting statement. That to initiate a current in a superconducting ring you need... a resistor. You start your magnetic mumbo jumbo with the resistor inserted - and it's the field in the resistor that makes the electron go - once in the superconducting material they continue 'by inertia', and only after the current is established, you switch to a full superconducting ring.

Pretty crazy, uh?

Komplete krapp. Lewin is an idiot.
My electon electricity is on the surface of the conductor. Game over.

Another thing. Lewin mentions a correct solution. There are 2 kinds of correct solution.
(1) A theoretically correct theoretical solution. Lewins has embraced this with zero apology.
(2) A practically correct solution based on measurements (with a minimal amount of theory & assumptions).
(1) Is a faux solution, little better than arguing about how many angels can dance on a needle.
(2) Is a true solution, limited by the minimal amount of theory needed, & limited by the practical shortcomings & assumptions of the experiment design & measurements.
Lewins duznt seem to know the difference tween (1) & (2).
Praps he can do a youtube re the theoretical colour of Unicorn poo.

[Sredni]

Derek circuit is not at DC (it's a mind trick), the effect he talks about is at ~1m wavelength (and you can see it on the oscilloscope).
The reason why I used 300 Mhz in a 0.1 mm wire is to get a similar ratio between current depth and wire radius in a copper and superconductor wire.

Derek set out to show that energy is in the fields for a DC circuit. He uses the initial transient to drive his point home because the energy that reaches the load before the time length/c cannot come from the cables.
Are you suggesting that even when the transient has subsided the only current in the cable is that on the surface? My take is that Derek uses the term superconductor to mean "let's not consider the resistance in the wires" and not "let's use an exotic material cooled with liquid helium all the way to the Moon".

What if the cables had a total resistance for their entire lenght of 1 microohm? Would you still consider the current as only surface current, after say 10 seconds since the switch is closed?

Definitely not in Lewin's. He says E=B=0 inside the superconductor, one of the most well-known fact (or "fact") about them.
If Lewin wanted, he could have taken a wire with a 50 cm thick copper wire, or 5 cm steel wire with a more reasonable size so that it works at 1Hz.
It is, after all, a thought experiment.

As far as the coil or the magnet is moving, I don't see a difference between the behavior of a perfect conductor and a superconductor. The difference come with the static field, but a static B field won't be able to induce a current. So, if the induced electric field had no way to penetrate the perfect conductor (because of the surface current killing it in the cradle), Lewin's experiment should lead to the same result both for perfect conductors and superconductors.
I still think Lewin is using the term superconductor to mean "no resistance whatsoever in the material" and not as something his JEE students should elaborate on.

[electrodacus]

Derek set out to show that energy is in the fields for a DC circuit. He uses the initial transient to drive his point home because the energy that reaches the load before the time length/c cannot come from the cables.
Are you suggesting that even when the transient has subsided the only current in the cable is that on the surface? My take is that Derek uses the term superconductor to mean "let's not consider the resistance in the wires" and not "let's use an exotic material cooled with liquid helium all the way to the Moon".

What if the cables had a total resistance for their entire lenght of 1 microohm? Would you still consider the current as only surface current, after say 10 seconds since the switch is closed?

Derek's claim is that "energy doesn't travel through wire" and this is a direct quote.
At DC steady state the electric current that is defined as a stream of electrons flows uniformly through the entire cross section of the conductor.
Since electric current travels through the wire it means energy travels through the wire.
During the transient part all current flow is still in the wire is just that part of the current charges the line capacitance and part of the current is lost on the Lamp as lamp is between two capacitors that are being charged.
 

As far as the coil or the magnet is moving, I don't see a difference between the behavior of a perfect conductor and a superconductor. The difference come with the static field, but a static B field won't be able to induce a current. So, if the induced electric field had no way to penetrate the perfect conductor (because of the surface current killing it in the cradle), Lewin's experiment should lead to the same result both for perfect conductors and superconductors.
I still think Lewin is using the term superconductor to mean "no resistance whatsoever in the material" and not as something his JEE students should elaborate on.

With no resistance in a conductor the current flow induced by the changing magnetic field will remain there.
So once you induce a current flow that will be permanent as without resistance to current flow there is nothing to stop it.

[aetherist]

Sredni  Naej  electrodacus & Everybody & Co.
What is a wire that has zero resistance?
What is a wire that is a perfect conductor?
What is a wire that is a superconductor?
What are the differences?

Here my meaning is what are the critical electrical properties.
The answers or definitions might i suppose be of an entirely or partly gedanken nature.
This would be in the context of Lewin's gedanken, & praps Veritasium's gedanken – ie short & sweet & simple.

I have given this some thort over the past 6 months.
A warning --                              "O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;  No more of that”

[electrodacus]

Sredni  Naej  electrodacus & Everybody & Co.
What is a wire that has zero resistance?
What is a wire that is a perfect conductor?
What is a wire that is a superconductor?
What are the differences?

Here my meaning is what are the critical electrical properties.
The answers or definitions might i suppose be of an entirely or partly gedanken nature.
This would be in the context of Lewin's gedanken, & praps Veritasium's gedanken – ie short & sweet & simple.

I have given this some thort over the past 6 months.
A warning --                              "O, that way madness lies; let me shun that;  No more of that”

You look more like a philosopher so people ignores your comments and likely find them annoying.
The superconductor discussion is irrelevant and sort of a side discussion.

Main claim made by Derek (Veritasium) and discussed here is if electrical energy travels outside of wires as he claims or inside the wire as all evidence is pointing to.

The wires, incandescent lamp or a resistor are all the same thing and that will be a an electrical conductor.
Even air is an electrical conductor but is so bad that we do not consider that as a conductor but an electrical insulator.
Electron flow (electrical current) is inside the wire not outside the wire in Derek simple low voltage experiment thus since electrical power is product of electrical current and electrical potential the power flows inside the wire.
Even a small gap of a few mm between the switch contacts will interrupt the flow of electrical current and thus the flow of electrical power.

No need for any quantum mechanics just need to acknowledge the existence of electrons as charged particles and that electrical current is a stream of charged particles.

[Alex Eisenhut]

So does my radio still work?

[aetherist]

So does my radio still work?

Yes.
But the electricity is different to what u were taught.
And the radio waves are different to what u were taught.
Otherwise nothing to see here.

[electrodacus]

So does my radio still work?

I do not know about your radio . But radios obviously work.
Derek setup in the first few nanoseconds also works the same way.
The wires on each side of the lamp act as a receiver antenna. Those two capacitors are being charged by the battery during initial transient and after that since this is DC there is no more variable electric field but energy is delivered from battery to the lamp  through wires.
Even if you replace the battery with an AC source all energy travels through wires.
If you charge a bit of plastic and wave that in the air you are also transmitting a signal a you have a variable electric field or you can wave a permanent magnet tho that will have a lower range.

Maybe due to the fact that Derek's circuit is symmetric is confusing so you can think of it as the circuit is long only in one direction while the other is directly connected with just 1m of wire.
Now the long side can be to the Moon and back and say you forgot to connected on the Moon then all you have is a very long capacitor.
When you close the switch that is next to battery all you do is start charging this long capacitor through a lamp (1KOhm resistor) so of course there will be a current through the switch for some ms as you charge the capacitor (not very efficiency as is in series with the lamp).
If you connect the wires on the Moon it will still start the same way as if it was a long capacitor but after electron wave had the time to travel through the long wire the current through the resistor will be larger and no energy is being stored anymore so all energy exiting the battery ends up on the resistor assuming transmission line has no resistance or negligible.

You can not consider a capacitor as a resistor as  energy is not lost as heat but being stored that is why I say energy flows in to a capacitor while it is being charged and not through a capacitor.

[hamster_nz]

Snice this thread is a about electrons (charges) pushing each other, I've been wondering....

Ignoring other forces (like gravity and magnetism), if we have a stationary electron between two copper places, with 100V across them, the negative charge of the electron will be attracted to the + plate, and repelled by the - plate. I'm pretty sure we all agree to that.

What happens if we put that electron inside a small paper box (but still between the two plates) - does it still feel the same forces? (I think yes). Does the paper box feel any force? (I think no).

What happens if we put the electron inside a small copper box - does it still feel the same forces? (I think no) Does the copper box feel any force? (I think yes). So if the copper box was able to move it would move while the electron inside the box stays still, as it has no forces acting on it.

What does @electrodacus and @aetherist think?

[aetherist]

Snice this thread is a about electrons (charges) pushing each other, I've been wondering....

Ignoring other forces (like gravity and magnetism), if we have a stationary electron between two copper places, with 100V across them, the negative charge of the electron will be attracted to the + plate, and repelled by the - plate. I'm pretty sure we all agree to that.

What happens if we put that electron inside a small paper box (but still between the two plates) - does it still feel the same forces? (I think yes). Does the paper box feel any force? (I think no).

What happens if we put the electron inside a small copper box - does it still feel the same forces? (I think no) Does the copper box feel any force? (I think yes). So if the copper box was able to move it would move while the electron inside the box stays still, as it has no forces acting on it.

What does @electrodacus and @aetherist think?

I suspect that the nett charge inside a copper box (Faraday Cage) is zero everywhere, but i might be wrong.
The box would i suppose have a nett attraction to one plate or the other (the closer plate).
The electron would i suppose have no nett charge force on it, except nett forces affecting its spin/orientation i think.

I suppose that every wire is a Faraday Cage.
Internal electrons would not know about any charge stuff or electric stuff going on.
Except that they would feel the magnetic stuff.
Hmmm -- i will havtahava think.

[DiTBho]

What is a wire that has zero resistance?
What is a wire that is a perfect conductor?
What is a wire that is a superconductor?
What are the differences?

I think, the difference is in your working model, so inside your head and it depends on what you consider, what you know, and how you describe what you need to achieve your goal.

Are you a theoretical physicist? or an engineer? do you have to run a mathematical model on a sub atomic scale, or a radio frequency (4 Ghz) electronic circuit? or a low frequency (<25Mhz)?

Depending on your goal, you can treat electrons like little balls (classic physics applied to low speed), you need to treat them like physical waves (classic physics, applied to high speed), or like mathematical probability waves (quantum physics), or like mathematical probability time-independent (experimental theories, e.q. quantum-elector-dynamics and gravity-loop)

I think .. it depends ... 

On Jupiter, due to high gravity and particular atmospheric gas, electrons are free to move like if the whole planet was a big kind of conductor and you have matter that doesn't behave like it does on Earth.

When you study lightning, you work with high energy (GWatt) and again the electrons works in a plasma environment (the forth state of matter), which is not what you find with common wires and metallic recticles

It's like when you know how a mouse and a bird look like, then you enter in a cave and you see a bat

"plasma"  is a "bat"? it flies like a bird, but it looks more like a mouse, is is a "flying mouse"? ... you can consider it a "flying mouse", it may/may not work for you, depending on your purpose.

Electrons on a slit, are they like photons? are they like tennis balls? or more like waves? Mathematically ... they are like a bat, an animal that you are not familiar with, but are you interested in knowing this for some purpose or are you only interested in measuring the potential field that they manifest microscopically?


I'm one of those people who argues that reality depends on how we process it ... so things are just definitions applied to a mind-model

[electrodacus]

What happens if we put the electron inside a small copper box - does it still feel the same forces? (I think no) Does the copper box feel any force? (I think yes). So if the copper box was able to move it would move while the electron inside the box stays still, as it has no forces acting on it.

What does @electrodacus and @aetherist think?

The copper box in an electric field will have more electrons on the top side of the box and less on the bottom side (as it is in your diagram).
So with or without the copper box the electron will move in the same direction.  If you connect the box with a copper wire to any of the two plates then you can consider that a shield.
I think we discussed something similar before when we considered a plate in the middle not connected to anything and the fact that electrons will move to one side of the plate if it was in an electric field.
Box is similar and electrons from the bottom side will move through the side panels to the top resulting in a much higher number of free electrons on the top side of the box and a deficit of electrons on the bottom face of the box.


Edit:
I wrote the above last night but thinking about the steady state meaning if you can add that electron in the box (teleport the electron) after the capacitor was charged there should be no electric field inside the box. The electron is just there in theory to ask if there is an electric field in that region and in steady state there is not.
There are more electrons on the top plate and proportionally less on the bottom one but they are arranged on the outside facing the plates.
Duringing charging if box is already there current will flow through the sides of the box. That current to move electrons from the bottom of the box to the top of the box is what Derek's sees in those first ns through the lamp.
If you remove the 100V battery nothing will change there will still be an electric field and capacitor will still be charged. If you short circuit the two plates electrons from bottom plate will flow to the top plate through the wire you used to short circuit the plates and at the same time current will flow through the box as electrons move back from the topside of the box to the bottom side so that everything becomes neutral again.

[aetherist]

What is a wire that has zero resistance?
What is a wire that is a perfect conductor?
What is a wire that is a superconductor?
What are the differences?

I think, the difference is in your working model, so inside your head and it depends on what you consider, what you know, and how you describe what you need to achieve your goal.

Are you a theoretical physicist? or an engineer? do you have to run a mathematical model on a sub atomic scale, or a radio frequency (4 Ghz) electronic circuit? or a low frequency (<25Mhz)?

Depending on your goal, you can treat electrons like little balls (classic physics applied to low speed), you need to treat them like physical waves (classic physics, applied to high speed), or like mathematical probability waves (quantum physics), or like mathematical probability time-independent (experimental theories, e.q. quantum-elector-dynamics and gravity-loop)

I think .. it depends ... 

On Jupiter, due to high gravity and particular atmospheric gas, electrons are free to move like if the whole planet was a big kind of conductor and you have matter that doesn't behave like it does on Earth.

When you study lightning, you work with high energy (GWatt) and again the electrons works in a plasma environment (the forth state of matter), which is not what you find with common wires and metallic recticles

It's like when you know how a mouse and a bird look like, then you enter in a cave and you see a bat

"plasma"  is a "bat"? it flies like a bird, but it looks more like a mouse, is is a "flying mouse"? ... you can consider it a "flying mouse", it may/may not work for you, depending on your purpose.

Electrons on a slit, are they like photons? are they like tennis balls? or more like waves? Mathematically ... they are like a bat, an animal that you are not familiar with, but are you interested in knowing this for some purpose or are you only interested in measuring the potential field that they manifest microscopically?


I'm one of those people who argues that reality depends on how we process it ... so things are just definitions applied to a mind-model

My problem is that my new (electon) electricity needs the photons (electons) propagating along the outside surface of a wire to hug the wire, due to a slowing on the near sides.
These electons also heat the wire due to resistance.
If a perfect conductor has zero resistance then there will be no heating. But, according to my theory, if there is zero resistance then there will be zero or very little hugging effect.
Hence a perfect conductor would have zero conductance. Zero conductance is in effect infinite resistance. Hence zero resistance gives infinite resistance.
And thencely comes the madness.

[TimFox]

My problem is that my new (electon) electricity needs the photons (electons) propagating along the outside surface of a wire to hug the wire, due to a slowing on the near sides.
These electons also heat the wire due to resistance.
If a perfect conductor has zero resistance then there will be no heating. But, according to my theory, if there is zero resistance then there will be zero or very little hugging effect.
Hence a perfect conductor would have zero conductance. Zero conductance is in effect infinite resistance. Hence zero resistance gives infinite resistance.
And thencely comes the madness.
[/quote]

This is a reductio ad absurdum, by which you have disproved your own thesis.