I have been reading a book about electricity which states that: electric current is not the movement of electrons but the "impulse generated when free electrons orderly "jump" from one atom to the other. On some other topic of the book it also states that, electrons lose energy when they move through loads.
I really do not understand how the impulse phenomenon takes place in a conductor. Could anyone elucidate me on the subject?
Secondly, what signs electrons present when they lose energy?
When you connect a battery to a open circuit. Your battery has an excess of electrons at the negative terminal and a deficit at the positive terminal. When your circuit is closed, the excess electrons at the battery negative terminal start diffusing into the wire. Electrons in the wire then start diffusing away from the negative terminal along the wire and the end result is a voltage wave that travels down the wire at a few tenths of the speed of light. Due to this fact, electrons starts accelerating and collectively shifts their position together. Each and every electrons at the negative terminal does not moves completely to the positive terminal, each electron only moves a little bit, but all of them move together, and so the net current is observed.
As the electrons are accelerated by the electric field (also decelerated by resistance), there is change in momentum and hence there is an impulse. That may be stated in that book.
