Which one is faster Light or Electric current???
364039
depends on the medium they are transmitted through- if current in a wire, light in a vacuum is faster, if electron flow through a vacuum, like a radio signal- nearly same speed with light having a tiny edge.
267999
Light is an electromagnetic wave, like radio waves, governed by Maxwell's Equations:\n\nhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maxwell%27s_equations\n\nThis means there are both electric and magnetic waves travelling together; one cannot exist without the other. The energy of the light trades back and forth between the electric and magnetic waves continuously. \n\nNeat thing to consider - metals are shiny because they are conductors! The electric field hits the metal and is cancelled out - a conductor won't allow a voltage difference between two points. The current which flows through the conductor creates a magnetic field which radiates away at 90 degrees to the source. That magnetic field collapses and creates an electric field... effectively, a new light beam! And that is how reflections work.\n\nNo conductor is perfect, of course, so some of that electric current in the surface of the conductor causes resistive heating. This is the reason why a fork left on a sunny picnic table will get a lot hotter than the surrounding air. \n\nFreakier still is that light has mass, which demonstrates that waves and fundamental forces seem to be carried by some sort of "messenger particle", though that's well outside the scope of this Electrical Engineer's theoretical physics training!
775590
"...What makes the light go so fast?..." Asking why light travels as fast as it does is a useless question because there's no answer. Light behaves as it does because that's just the way it worked out in our universe.\n\n"...What exactly is the definition of light?..." Light is electromagnetic radiation in many forms. For example radio signals, radar beams, lasers, visible light, xrays, etc.,. Light can behave both as a series of waves (..sort of like sound waves), or as a stream of individual particles. Light is said to be invariant, that is it moves at only one velocity regardless of how fast its source might move. The carrier of light energy is the 'photon' which has a tiny mass, but only when its not moving, and since light is never motionless under usual conditions it actually has no mass.\n\n"...Is only one single atom or electron going at 186000 miles per hour considered as light?..." No! Atoms and electrons and other subatomic particles all have mass, and nothing with mass can move at the speed of light.
455913
DC (direct current) only flows in one direction.  AC (alternating current) is current which changes direction back and forth with a regular period.\n   The electrons really do flow.  If you look at the "drift", or physical motion of an individual electron, it is much slower than you might think.  In a 12-gauge copper wire carrying 20 Amps of current, the average speed of an electron is quite slow; about 1/250 of a mile per hour.  There's just so many electrons moving along so slowly that it adds up to a substantial current.\n   Why then, when you flip a switch, does the light turn on so quickly?  That's due to wave propagation, which is much faster.  Think of waves in the deep ocean; the waves can move quite quickly, but if you're swimming in it, you're not moving nearly so quickly.  You feel a slight up and down motion, but the wave may be propagating at 30 MPH.  The water itself is not flowing along across the surface at 30 MPH, but the wave is.\n    It is exactly the same with electrons.  While the wave is moving very quickly, the electrons themselves move very little.  In the wiring of your house carrying 20 Amps of AC current, the electrons are wiggling back and forth 60 times per second over a distance of about one thousandth of an inch.\n    However, the wave moves much much faster, when you flip the switch, the change in voltage travels along the wiring at very near the speed of light (it's slowed down about 30% below the speed of light by the plastic insulation on the wire).\n    With that prelude, to answer your questions:\n- the copper wire is not typically called an ion.  During current flow, an atom may hand its extra electron to the next copper atom, but it also gets an electron from the atom on the other side.  Thus, each atom always stays about neutral in charge.  This is described as the copper atoms forming a lattice through which the "sea" of electrons can freely flow.\n- a heater does not work by converting kinetic energy of electrons to heat quite the way you describe.  Instead, it uses the electrical energy available on the conductors of the power cord, which takes the form of electrostatic force of attraction which pushes electrons from the negative line to the positive line.  As an electron eneters the heating element from the negative line, it feels a strong force of attraction towards the other end of the heating element, which is connected to the positive line.  The electron accelerates due to this force, and speeds up somewhat, but it travels only a fraction of a millimeter before it collides with a microscopic defect in the lattice of the heating element, and decelerates and transfers its kinetic energy into vibration of the lattice of atoms of the heating element (i.e. into heat).  It then accelerates again, then hits another defect.\n   The main thing which distinguishes the metal of the heating element from the metal of the copper wires feeding them is that the heating element has a higher density of lattice defects (i.e. higher resistance).  An excellent analogy is American falls at Niagra, where the water approaches in a deep, broad stream moving relatively slowly at high potential (i.e. the negative copper wire), then tumbles down quickly under acceleration of gravity, losing potential, but hitting a bunch of rocks on the way down.  Hitting each rock slows the water down, and also transfers some heat to the rock, but after each impact the water accelerates again as it falls to the next rock.  Then, the water leaves at lower potential in another slow, deep stream (i.e. the positive copper wire).
204272
Light travels faster than sound.
508002
electricty is form of energy which is created by flow of positive charges(conventional assumption).but actually it is due to the flow ofelectrons inthe direction opposite to the flow of electricity.actually electrons do not travel with that speeed the electric field does the necessary.\n\nbut u have mentioned that matter particles cannot atttain the velocity comparable to that of light.\ni think its not correct\naccording to einstien's theory of relativity\nno particle in this universe is able to attain the velocity greater than that of light even same velocity for some.\nbut if the particle travels with a velocity comparable to that of light then the mass changes accordingly\nm=mo/sqrt(1-v^2/c^2)\nwhere mo is the rest mass of particle\nv is velocity of particle\nc is the velocity of light\nm is the mass of particle at velocity v
654472
Hi, chris........both are actually the result of same thing,....\n\nwhen two clouds come together, there is electric discharge,\n\na cloud can be seen as a large capacitor.......\n\nso sound and light are produced at the same time.......\n\nsince sound travels at 330 mph, and light at 300000 mps\n\nsound reaches us later coz its very slow compared to light, so we see light immediately but it takes time for the sound to reach our ears..........\n\nwhich is better??? one doesnt happen without the other....\n\nthe power generated in a lightning is 50000 volts......\n\nscientists are trying to store the power these days, \n\nthe same they cant do with sound, and lighting is obviously more dangerous......
563154
There are things that can move faster than the speed of light, but they can't carry information faster than the speeed of light.  For example if you shine a spotlight on a distant mountain and then spin the light around so that the spot moves really fast you can easily get a situation where that spot of light goes faster than the speed of light.\n\nBut I think you were referring to particles that move faster than light maybe?  It was conjectured that a particle called a "tachyon" could go faster than light.  But these particles have never been detected, although serious efforts have been made to do so.  \n\nIn the real world if you keep adding energy to a particle, its speed will keep increasing, but it can never hit the speed of light.  Then again, maybe there can be some mechanism whereby matter could be made to "jump" to a speed higher than the speed of light without ever going *at* the speed of light?  I think nobody knows a way to do this, and it may also be impossible.  New physics would need to be discovered!
1048247
There may be objects (tachyons) that move faster than light, up to perhaps infinite speeds.\nHowever, nothing already slower than light can accelerate to or beyond the speed of light.
753670
The speed of light varies depending on the medium the light is traveling through.  In a vacuum however, which is the fastest medium in which light can travel, the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/s.
653198
As your question states 'Which travels faster than sound,light and wind?', there's no answer to that because Light travels the fastest in the universe.
48482
It is how fast light travels. It varies depending on the medium it is going through. The denser the medium, the slower it travels.\n\nIt is possible for radiation to travel faster than light through a medium, I think it is called Korentkov radiation or something like that.\n\nBut the upper limit, based on Einstein's "C" constant is about 186,000 miles per second or 300 million km per hour
98380
.   There is something called ball lightning. It drifts slowly along and can release its energy by exploding. I read that it had been reproduced in the lab using super high voltage generators.\n.    The light from a lightning bolt travels at the speed of light but the lightning bolt travels much slower. A lightning bolt consists of ionized atoms physically moveing through the air from the cloud toward the ground and a charge comeing up from the ground to meet it. I believe the whole process takes one hundreth of a second.
560586
The speed of light is constant in vacuum.\n\nHowever the athmosphere might slow it down a bit (as it has a refraction index slightly greater than 1)... but that is unsignificant. It will rather lose energy than speed.
8775
E = hf applies to light, not electricity.\n\nThe power consumed by AC current is assessed by the root mean square, which is equivilent to the peak amplitude divided by radical 2.  The frequency doesn't factor into the matter.
960079
You've lost the point of the equation.  Squaring the speed of light will give you the energy released, not an enhanced speed of light.
141754
Electromagnetic waves??? thats something ive never heard of before. how about posting the article or the website online? \n\ni do know that electricity can be "transmitted" by magnetism, via electromagnetic induction. according to faraday's law, a changing rate of magnetic flux linkage induces an electromotive force, and thus induces current on a conductor. check out faraday's law at wikipedia for more info dude...