it's an interesting article, and I'd love to understand some of the science behind it. However, this article didn't tell me much of it.
> "This is why when someone suffocates another person they are dead within minutes. You have stopped the supply of oxygen, so the electrons can no longer flow." - Kenneth Nealson at the University of Southern California
Chemical oxidation is not, by any sensible analogy, current flow. It is the exchange of electrons, sure, but the tiny amount of charge flowing anywhere, and the huge masking that occurs in aqueous systems, would reliably prevent any normal consequences of current flow (like a B field) from occurring.
Even what happens in neurons isn't really current flow in any real sense, it is the sympathetic diffusion of ions sideways (in and out of the cell all the way along its length, if the medic who explained this to me was talking any sense) which results in charge at one end of the cell "talking to" charge at the other. Obviously if it were actual "flow", i.e. diffusion, of ions your reaction times would be a lot slower.
> Obviously if it were actual "flow", i.e. diffusion, of ions your reaction times would be a lot slower.
The current in cables work similar way - each electron moves forawrd and back by small distance, never moving far away from the place it started in.
But the information about movement (the elecrtomagnetic field) spreads from one electron to another with the speed of light, so the electrons at the end of cable move as soon as the information gets to them from the begining of the cable.
That's why when you press light switch the light starts almost immediately, despite electrons in cables only moving by millimeters per hour.
I had forgotten about the analogy with electron speed in wires - thank you! I remember my music teacher giving me a very funny look when I pointed it out, and then claiming that electrons must move through wires at the speed of light...when of course it is the electric field "wavefront" that does so.
You're right, its not a great analogy to think about it in terms of current flows, but on the flip side, it totally is about the flow of electrons. When you get right down to the bottom of it, nearly everything boils down to that electron transport chain.
Sure, chemistry is ultimately just quantum mechanics. Oxidation was always explained as an electron exchange in chemistry. It's just not electron flow.
Yes, except in biological systems you can chart out long chains of consecutive electron exchanges such that you end up with electrons transferring between two molecules with the intermediate molecules remaining the same in the end.
In my mind, this makes an analogy to electrical systems, for example a simple battery powered circuit more acceptable.
Still agree that connecting it with 'current' is probably not the best approach.
> "This is why when someone suffocates another person they are dead within minutes. You have stopped the supply of oxygen, so the electrons can no longer flow." - Kenneth Nealson at the University of Southern California
Chemical oxidation is not, by any sensible analogy, current flow. It is the exchange of electrons, sure, but the tiny amount of charge flowing anywhere, and the huge masking that occurs in aqueous systems, would reliably prevent any normal consequences of current flow (like a B field) from occurring.
Even what happens in neurons isn't really current flow in any real sense, it is the sympathetic diffusion of ions sideways (in and out of the cell all the way along its length, if the medic who explained this to me was talking any sense) which results in charge at one end of the cell "talking to" charge at the other. Obviously if it were actual "flow", i.e. diffusion, of ions your reaction times would be a lot slower.