Halp plz. Electrons flow very slowly through a circuit, yet it does not take a noticeably long time for a lamp to light up when you turn on a distant switch. How quickly a lamp lights up after an electrical switch is closed does not depend on the drift velocity of the conduction electrons, but depends on the speed at which the ____ propagates through the circuit, which is about the speed of light.
Imagine having a long string of billiard balls right next to each other. If you hit the one that is near you, the farthest one away gets pushed out of the row considerably and quite fast after hitting the string of billiards, even though the rest of the balls have barely moved. A very similar thing is happening with those electrons. The exact word to be filled in elludes me though, as only "shockwave" comes to mind.
I'm studying chemistry with great success, but electrochemistry always bedazzled me ... Electric currents just don't even try to make sense
