Physicists Make Electrons Flow Like Water

(quantamagazine.org)

65 points | by rbanffy 4 days ago ago

6 comments

  • stevenwoo 24 minutes ago ago

    I thought this was going to be a version of the story that appeared this week in New Scientist but it’s a different aspect of electron behavior, in the other article it talks about reducing friction in moving parts https://www.newscientist.com/article/2514425-physicists-can-...

  • veryvisa an hour ago ago

    Graphene is incredible. We've known for a while about graphene's potential but until recently the methods for producing quality graphene were too inefficient/inconsistent. Dr. Chris Sorensen at Kansas State discovered a process to create pristine graphene synthetically (vs from graphite with the scotch tape method mentioned in the article). He is currently bringing this to industry at HydroGraph Clean Power. Exciting times.

  • gaze 2 hours ago ago

    2d materials are so awful to work with but keep yielding these stunningly beautiful results so physicists must persist.

  • 7bit 2 hours ago ago

    Why should we change how we teach about electricity, when we can change electricity to confirm to how we teach! :)

    • spaceywilly an hour ago ago

      Well, the water analogy actually holds up quite well if you consider the charge field moving, not the electrons themselves. This guy has a lot of great videos using water channels to explain electricity. It is fascinating how under a high speed scope, you can see the electrical Charge “flow” like water down each branch of a circuit.

      https://youtu.be/2AXv49dDQJw?si=5lPy_Mz4kJFdi80t

      • kazinator 37 minutes ago ago

        Even rubber dams stretched across pipes work exactly like capacitors. Firstly, they block DC: water cannot flow. But back and forth movement is conveyed (AC passes). Less capacitance in series, more in parallel. Two such dams in series do not have more capacitance because to get one to stretch, the other must stretch; they partially cancel. And since there are two, more pressure is needed to get the same stretch. (Same as more voltage needed to cram in the same charge: less capacitance).

        Inductance doesn't have an analog. To some extent, the inertia of the fluid cam model some of it, I suppose. Like what is "water hammer" in plumbing? The circuit is too suddenly broken, but the water wants to keep moving. There's gotta be a resulting momentary pressure rise there in the closed-off line, similar to voltage rising in an interrupted inductor. If the valve were some weak piece of crap relative to the mass of the water, the water would break it: like arcing.