Skip to main content
2 of 2
added 320 characters in body
Peltio
  • 824
  • 5
  • 11

The problem you are facing is based on an idealization of wires as perfect conductors. $\Delta V=0$ is true only if the resistivity of the wires is zero.

You have two ways to resolve this apparent paradox: either you consider a limit approach to infinite conductivity, where the electric field in the conductor $E=j/\sigma$ approaches zero in the limit, or you consider the small but finite conductivity of real wires.

In this latter case the field E in the wires is not zero. It's just very small and the voltage drop across any portion of wire is negligible.

In both cases, attaching a wire to a battery directly will result in exceedingly high current densities (infinite, in the limit for $\sigma$ that goes to infinite.)

I am not considering the actual case of a superconductor where the field inside would be zero and only a surface current will be allowed.

Peltio
  • 824
  • 5
  • 11