In the following video clip at 2:10,
http://www.youtube.com/v/YslOUw5oueQ ,
Professor Walter Lewin talks about a misconception people have that the energy going through a wire to a resistor is in the form of kinetic energy of electrons. He proves this cannot be so as follows. The current density is J = I/A = Vne where V is the drift velocity (or average velocity), n is the number of electrons per volume, and e is the charge of an electron. A is a cross-sectional area of the wire.
We can make A as large as we want (keeping the current constant), and therefore V will have to become very small, and the electrons will have very little kinetic energy. Yet the resistor (say a light bulb) dissipates the same amount of power P=(I^2)*R. Therefore, it must be that the form of energy is not the kinetic energy of electrons.
My first question is, if we make A larger why does it have to be that V goes down? Perhaps n goes down - we increased the volume (by increasing the cross-sectional area), so there should be fewer electrons per volume?
My second question, my main question is, if the energy is not the kinetic energy of the electrons, what does in fact bring energy to the resistor and how does it heat up?