which explains clearly that it is a theory dictating where energy flows, not experiments.
Much like bsfeechannel, they don't point to experiments, because they cannot.
LoL. Here's two experiments that show where energy flows.
Experiment 1:
Attached a transformer to 220V AC, and get (say) 9V AC @ 0.5A out the other side. The wires never touch (due to insulation). How does that energy pass through the transformer?
The answer for some here seem to be : It can't. Because the energy flows in the wires. Those Watts coming out the transformer are not from the energy coming in.
Perhaps it's what they say.
What I say is that you get 4.5W consumed in the input, 4.5W produced in the output wires.
Potential is converted into momentum in the primary, this increases the momentum in the secondary which is then converted into potential (9V).
How is that momentum transferred? When a marble rolls past a stationary one, the stationary one doesn't just start moving. Do the charges have little sticks that the prod each other with?
Experiment 2:
Store energy into the middle of three capacitors in series. Energy is transferred even though no charges can pass around the entire loop. How is that possible?
The answer for some here seem to be : It isn't possible, because the energy flows in the wires. The energy in that middle capacitor isn't stored electrical energy, it's something else.
I can't answer for some. But when you charge the exterior capacitors, you create a current and potential difference in the middle one, which stores electrical energy at a rate of VI.
How does that current and potential get into the middle capacitor? And what what is current times potential, if it isn't energy?
Question still not answered:
Why do electrons in a wire drift proportionally to the current (the flow of charge), and not the energy being transferred?
For some the answer is : I'm not sure that they even drift
For others the answer for some here seem to be : Electrons carry not only charge they also carry the energy. They all have little backpacks they carry their electrical energy around it, and when a battery is connect or disconnect a battery they all quickly fill or empty their backpacks as required, sometimes over great distances, exactly at the time the connection is made or broken.
Mmh I'm not quite sure why you renamed potential energy into 'backpack', but if I were to explain electricity to children, I would consider it. Is potential a forbidden word now?
I'm curious how you see energy moving in vacuum. Is vacuum filling/emptying backpacks too? And giving to electrons/protons?
Here are my incoherent ramblings...
For electrostatics, the electric field fill the universe (just like gravity does). And the location of charges in that field define the electric field, just like how the location of masses define the gravitational field.
In a wire, where charges can move freely, changes drift to where they see the local field leading them, like marbles rolling down into a valley under gravity. They don't need to 'know' that there is a battery that is 10cm away to know which way to go, they just mindlessly follow the slope of the local electric field. Exactly like how water finds it's way to the outlet of a lake or dam. And as they move, their location also contributes to the electric field. Because charges are able to freely move within the wire, and their location defines the electric field, the electric field quickly becomes flat inside conductors when modest currents are flowing. The charges are not dissipating much energy, they are "doing minimal work" in the physics sense (force x distance).
At the edges and outside of the wires, where the charges can't freely move is where all the tension in the electric field occurs - that is where the fields have the most 'slope'. It is on that slope where you can extract energy from the fields. If you release a charge on such a slope it will know which way want to go - a negative charge will head in the "most positive" direction, and a positive charge will head in the "most negative" direction. If you were able to put an extra charge into a wire not much will happen - it will just drift along on the current.
You attach one end of a resistor to a just the positive wire, but leave the other end free. A small amount of charge will flow into it, but very quickly the whole resistor will have an flat electric field, just as flat as the wire. Anywhere you measure with a voltmeter on the either resistor or the wire will measure 0V. The resistor isn't releasing any of the field's energy, just moving where the field's energy is in space.
But when you attach one end of the resistor to a positive wire. and the other end to the negative wire, then you can extract energy from the field. All the semi-mobile charges in the resistor will see the "so many volts per meter" slope of the field and start moving in that direction. Those charges don't need to know how the electric field gets there, just that the field is there, and it has to follow it. This converts electrical energy into momentum of the charge.
Because the slope in the resistor is so high compared to that inside the wire, they really want to move fast. This gives the thermal heating (or light from the light bulb). That energy isn't coming from the electrons moving in the wire, but the slope in the electric field that is through the resistor, that is what accelerates the charge.
The wire supplies a steady supply of low-energy electrons to be accelerated in the resistor, and removes the low energy electrons that appear at the resistor's other end. The charge is accelerated using the energy supplied by the field, not the wire.
All this time, (assuming resistance of the wires is low compared to the resistor the wires) the electric field on the inside of the wires is flat, and the charges in the wire only transfers minimal energy. The wires set the shape of the electric field, and supplies charge, but the energy flows in the fields.
Batteries also change the shape of the electric field. They generate (and try to maintain) an electric field between their terminals. Batteries are sold as X volt batteries. The first thing you care about for a battery is the strength of the electric field it generates between its terminals. The total energy it can supply is a secondary consideration (along with size or cost). When you connect a battery to a wire, because the wire's charges are mobile the electric field around that wire changes to match that of the battery's terminal. And sure, some charge movement is required for this, but if you could look at how much charge moved how far to build up the electric field it is minimal. (That is unless somebody has put a large capacitor in there somewhere...)