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Explain me the flow of electric current through the conductor

Explain me the flow of electric current through the conductor

Grade:10

3 Answers

sneha manosh
17 Points
6 years ago

 will try to explain with some examples. There is never a potential difference when there is equilibrium.

You can think of it as a height difference. Think of positive potential as a high point and the negative one as a low point or ground. So there is a height difference. A thing at the high point is bound to come down.

Similarly, whenever there is charge imbalance, a potential difference is created. I tried to explain as well as I could but the question of exactly how it is created is kind of an abstract thing. It's like asking how the height difference is created between the two points.

Hope it helps.

Shreya D Nanda
74 Points
6 years ago
Hi ,
Flow of electric current in a conductor is due to net flow of charges or electrons.
    Electrons are continuously in random motion in a conductor. but if you consider a cross sectional area, then the number of electrons moving in one direction is equal to the number of electrons moving in the opposite direction. i.e, there is net flow of electrons. So there is no flow of electric current in the conductor. This is the reason you dont get electric shock when you simply touch a copper wire.
    But, when a potential difference is applied across a conductor, electric field is generated due to which electric force acts upon the electrons. Due to this force, all the free electrons in the conductor, move towards higher potential. THIS gives rise to electric current.
 NOTE: the direction of conventional current is opposite to the direction of electrons, i.e, from higher potential to lower potential.
 
 Hope it clears.....
 
hero
123 Points
6 years ago
An electric current is a flow of electric charge. In electric circuits this charge is often carried by moving electrons in a wire. It can also be carried by ions in an electrolyte, or by both ions and electrons such as in an ionised gas (plasma).[1]

In a conductive material, the moving charged particles which constitute the electric current are called charge carriers. In metals, which make up the wires and other conductors in most electrical circuits, the positively charged atomic nuclei are held in a fixed position, and the negatively charged electrons are free to move, carrying their charge from one place to another. In other materials, notably the semiconductors, the charge carriers can be positive or negative, depending on the dopant used. Positive and negative charge carriers may even be present at the same time, as happens in an electrochemical cell.

A flow of positive charges gives the same electric current, and has the same effect in a circuit, as an equal flow of negative charges in the opposite direction. Since current can be the flow of either positive or negative charges, or both, a convention is needed for the direction of current that is independent of the type of charge carriers. The direction of conventional current is arbitrarily defined as the same direction as positive charges flow.

The consequence of this convention is that electrons, the charge carriers in metal wires and most other parts of electric circuits, flow in the opposite direction of conventional current flow in an electrical circuit.

 

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