blueplanet200on Hacker News • Recommends
On “Why does water change the speed of electricity? [video]”
"How Electricity Actually Works" ( link to this video ) from Veritasium is related and also a fantastic video.
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#electromagnetism#poyntingvector#circuits
How Electricity Actually Works
Veritasium
21M subscribers • 25 videos on Hallway
- Recommended by 4 people: 4 on Hacker News.
- Presented by Derek Muller, creator of Veritasium
- An opinion. It argues one side of a question engineers disagree on.
Beginner. No background in the topic needed.
12M views4 years ago4 recommendations
Derek Muller explains that electrical energy flows through electromagnetic fields outside of wires rather than through the flow of electrons inside them.
This video is sponsored by Brilliant. The first 200 people to sign up via brilliant.org/veritasium get 20% off a yearly subscription. Special thanks to: Bruce Sherwood, Ruth Chabay, Aaron Titus, and Steve Spicklemore matterandinteractions.org VPython simulation: tinyurl.com/SurfaceCharge Thanks to Ansys for help with the simulations: ansys.com/products/electronics/ansys-hfss Huge thanks to Richard Abbott from Caltech for all his modeling Electrical Engineering YouTubers: Electroboom: youtube.com/c/Electroboom Alpha Phoenix: youtube.com/c/AlphaPhoenixChannel eevblog: youtube.com/c/EevblogDave Ben Watson: youtube.com/channel/UCgZUVIEtBnnBpFWJuxl_E5g Big Clive: youtube.com/c/Bigclive Z Y: youtube.com/user/ZongyiYang NYU Quantum Technology Lab youtube.com/channel/UCk7io8SN3ZwKvkpnMCbIGsA Dr. Ben Miles youtube.com/channel/UCUeZBocfxALSUdOgNJB5ySA Further analysis of the large circuit is available here: ve42.co/bigcircuit Special thanks to Dr Geraint Lewis for bringing up this question in the first place and discussing it with us. Check out his and Dr Chris Ferrie’s new book here: ve42.co/Universe2021 ▀▀▀ References: A great video about the Poynting vector by the Science Asylum: youtu.be/C7tQJ42nGno Sefton, I. M. (2002). Understanding electricity and circuits: What the text books don’t tell you. In Science Teachers’ Workshop. -- ve42.co/Sefton Feynman, R. P., Leighton, R. B., & Sands, M. (1965). The feynman lectures on physics; vol. Ii, chapter 27. American Journal of Physics, 33(9), 750-752. -- ve42.co/Feynman27 Hunt, B. J. (2005). The Maxwellians. Cornell University Press. Müller, R. (2012). A semiquantitative treatment of surface charges in DC circuits. American Journal of Physics, 80(9), 782-788. -- ve42.co/Muller2012 Galili, I., & Goihbarg, E. (2005). Energy transfer in electrical circuits: A qualitative account. American journal of physics, 73(2), 141-144. -- ve42.co/Galili2004 Deno, D. W. (1976). Transmission line fields. IEEE Transactions on Power Apparatus and Systems, 95(5), 1600-1611. -- ve42.co/Deno76 ▀▀▀ Special thanks to Patreon supporters: Inconcision, Kelly Snook, TTST, Ross McCawley, Balkrishna Heroor, Chris LaClair, Avi Yashchin, John H. Austin, Jr., OnlineBookClub.org, Dmitry Kuzmichev, Matthew Gonzalez, Eric Sexton, john kiehl, Anton Ragin, Diffbot, Micah Mangione, MJP, Gnare, Dave Kircher, Burt Humburg, Blake Byers, Dumky, Evgeny Skvortsov, Meekay, Bill Linder, Paul Peijzel, Josh Hibschman, Mac Malkawi, Michael Schneider, jim buckmaster, Juan Benet, Ruslan Khroma, Robert Blum, Richard Sundvall, Lee Redden, Vincent, Stephen Wilcox, Marinus Kuivenhoven, Clayton Greenwell, Michael Krugman, Cy 'kkm' K'Nelson, Sam Lutfi, Ron Neal ▀▀▀ Written by Derek Muller Edited by Derek Muller Filmed by Trenton Oliver and Petr Lebedev AnimationWhy it's here
4 people recommend thisWhat people say. Highly discussed and debated as a mind-bending explanation of electromagnetic energy transfer in electrical circuits.
jerfon Hacker News • Recommends
On “How the Most Useless Branch of Math Could Save Your Life”
…I particularly point at his videos about how nobody has measured the one-way speed of light ( link ), which was well-known among people very very deep in the field of relativity but not very well known outside of that (even amongst physicists in other fields, let alone lay people) and the electricity videos he's done in the last year ( link , link to this video ) which attracted a whole whackload of "debunking" videos, which were themselves wrong (the best "bunking" video, if I may call it that, is probably AlphaPheonix's: link , since he actually set up the experiment, albeit on a smaller scale). They aren't all of that caliber, but the knot theory video was very good too and not something I've…
lugoueson Hacker News • Recommends
On “Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?”
Sort of, electricity and magnetism are two sides of the same coin, electromagnetism, so it's waves in the electromagnetic field with the wire acting as a wave guide. (as far as I understand) Veritasium has a video that goes over this. It was pretty controversial at release but it gives a good overview. link to this video And why magnets work due to relativity link
leonidasrupon Hacker News • Recommends
On “A.I. Companies Are Recruiting Electricians and Carpenters by the Thousands”
Good intrpduction are Veritasium videos: "How Electricity Actually Works" link to this video "The Biggest Misconception About Electricity" link
H8crilAon Hacker News • Mentions
On “U.S. Marine Corps Antenna Handbook (1999) [pdf]”
You can invalidate the circuit theory with, well perhaps not $50 worth of hardware, but a bit more: link to this video I'm not sure how do you plan to invalidate Maxwell's theory, which shows that energy flows entirely outside of wires, with $50. It would be very much welcome in the physics community. This misconception is even more widespread than "planes fly because of Bernoulli" because it's so incredibly useful when designing most circuits/PCBs. Though it is, fundamentally, a lie. PS. Circuit theory is made to match reality for the case showed in the video via the concept of a transmission line.
cogman10on Hacker News • Mentions
On “LK99: Team of Southeast University observed zero resistance below 110 K”
…the density of the cars increases if someone slows down that has a reverberating effect down the chain. The magnetic field on a superconductor in turn induces a current on the conductor in the opposite direction. Here's a video discussing some of the implications of this effect in a way that seems counter intuitive :) 3 1 link 2 link 3 link to this video…
ben_won Hacker News • Mentions
On “Metals: Where Electricity May Flow Without Electrons”
There was a whole mess of STEM YouTubers arguing about this last year, e.g.: link to this video TL;DW: the power is transferred by the electric fields, it's the electric fields which move the electrons, if there's a break in the circuit the electrons necessarily accumulate in the places that minimise the electric fields.
antihipocraton Hacker News • Mentions
On “Veritasium: The SAT Question Everyone Got Wrong [video]”
In response to all the controversy he made a follow up video 0. In the video he recreated the experiment, explaining the effect in a more technically correct manner and also apologised for not doing so on the original. He also made it clear that the light globe in the original video did not receive enough current to light up.. it was hooked up to an alternative power source and an oscilloscope and upon receiving any signal above baseline would switch on the globe. 0 link to this video
westurneron Hacker News • Mentions
On “Replacing Wires Could Double How Much Electricity the US Grid Can Handle”
Transmission line > Matrix parameters > Variable definitions: link But, FWIU how this applies to line length and transmission time hadn't been tested until Veritasium's experimental video with CalTech with like a mile of cable: link to this video So, it doesn't need multiple length parameters.
ninetyninenineon Hacker News • Mentions
On “How to succeed in MrBeast production (Leaked PDF)”
agreed. This one: link to this video generated a lot of controversy and he ended up being right. Hence the criticism. It's almost like the Monty Hall problem for Marilyn vos savant where even people with PhDs derided her for being wrong when in fact they were all wrong themselves.
westurneron Hacker News • Mentions
On “Brandon's Semiconductor Simulator”
…n in electronic circuits and their fields? How long does it take for a lightbulb to turn on after a switch is thrown, given the length of the circuit and the real distance between points in it? (I learned this gap in our understanding of electron behavior from this experiment, which had never been done FWIU: "How Electricity Actually Works" (2022) link to this video ) FWIW, additionally: Hall Effect and Quantum Anomalous Hall Effect; "Tunable superconductivity and Hall effect in a transition metal dichalcogenide" (2025) link ScholarlyArticle: "Moiré-driven topological electronic crystals in twisted graphene" (2025) link NewsArticle: "Anomalous Hall crystal made from twisted graphene" (2025) link…
ChadNauseamon Hacker News • Mentions
On “Problem solving using Markov chains (2007) [pdf]”
> suffice to say that the lightbulb does not turn on immediately like he claims Many people said this, but he set up an experiment to test it and the light does turn on instantly as claimed: link to this video > There second one takes a mathematical model for the path integral for light and portrays it like that's actually what is happening I know nothing about this. Is there a more accurate mathematical model available than the one he uses? Otherwise, I think it seems sensible to portray our best mathematical model as "what's really going on". And I didn't get the sense that light was "choosing" anything when watching the video, I got the sense that the amplitudes of all possible paths were cancelling…