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Physicists Make Electrons Flow Like Water(quantamagazine.org)
61 points by rbanffy 4 days ago | 5 comments
veryvisa 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

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 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

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

7bit an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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

spaceywilly 41 minutes ago | parent [-]

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 12 minutes ago | parent [-]

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.