An intuitive approach for understanding electricity

In this video, I try to explain electricity Ohm's Law… using a LOT of different demonstrations and analogies. I've been working on this script for like a year and a half now - this took SO long to assemble because electricity is an absolute pain to learn and to explain. I crammed every analogy to describe electricity I could think of into this video (which is why it's... oof... 40 minutes... who's going to watch this?).

When I learn something hard, it's normally after I've seen it a few times before, so with a tough topic in this video, I'm trying to scatter-shot and hope that at least one demo clicks for everybody! If it DOESN'T click for you, let me know what's weird! There will be an FAQ about this video posted on the second channel in a few weeks. If you want to ask a question, drop it in the comments here, or if you want to make sure I see it, leave a note on the new Patreon Discord server!

The biggest intentional omission in this video is not addressing radial charge distribution in a wire, and I know that's going to annoy some of the commenters here. I only talk about 1D wires so I don't have to confuse people by making them imagine different families of electrons at different parts of the wire when at the end of the day they can all get squished and move the same way - so please consider all of my diagrams with electrons getting "more concentrated" to be looking all the way through a wire, including the surfaces :)

Thanks to the VERY FIRST Channel Superfans from Patreon!
birdiesnbritts
John Sosa Trustham
Vladimir Shklovsky

Chapters:
00:00 Intro to Ohm's Law
04:18 Current
06:18 Resistance
08:30 Voltage
19:43 The water Channel Model
25:06 Power and Energy
31:32 Clarifications

Media Credits:
Heavenly Choir, Monty Python and the Holy Grail
Move Ya by Max Surla/Media Right Productions is licensed under YouTube Music
Mountain by Text Me Records is licensed under YouTube Music
Vespers by Topher Mohr and Alex Elena is licensed under YouTube Music
Switched on Carcassi by Brian Bolger is licensed under YouTube Music
Way Out West by Chris Haugen is licensed under YouTube Music

[AlphaPhoenixChannel]

FAQs and corrections in this comment!
I'll answer some of the most common comment questions here, but in a few weeks, I'm going to post an actual post-video FAQ video on the second channel including questions from the comments here, and questions from supporters on Patreon!

1) Pre-emptive answer: The distance any given electron needs to move to "pool up" behind a resistor is miniscule, but you can't ignore it. It's tempting to say that the moment you connect a wire, electricity is a pure wave where the electrons don't move from their starting positions, but in reality they just BARELY move from their starting positions. Imagine a big long line of people, and all the people in the back of the line take one step forward - now the front of the line is crammed SLIGHTLY closer together on average - that's kinda what's going on. The scale of all of this is really weird, so demonstrations amplify it, then the demonstrations get questioned for amplifying it too much…

2) lots of people asking about inductance. In the case of the water trough model, the inertia of the flowing water is similar to inductance, and if you wanted to make the inductance larger, you could put a waterwheel with a large moment of inertia in the channel. It would be hard to spin up, and then it would be hard to spin down once you got it going.

3) lots of commenters have correctly pointed out that my “replace all the electrons” statement was too general. I am referring to all mobile electrons, which in a metal refers to one valence electron per atom. However all of these electrons, no matter where they live in the wire (in the middle or on the surface) chug along at the same drift velocity and eventually would be “replaced” if you had a way to mark them

4)

[Carriersounds]

as an EE grad student, this is the first time the term "electron volt" has made sense to me, never got why mass/energy was expressed as that unit

[YourOldDog]

As a 77 year old Amateur Radio enthusiast I am tired to the max of taking all my theory on "faith" only and not a working understanding of how it all works. Wish we had the benefit of YouTube 50 years ago. Thank you for taking the time to put this all together. God Bless...

[lujitsu]

I’m a professional electrical engineer with 30 years of experience and an adjunct physics teacher. I am Old. I think this is probably the best examples I have seen for examples of voltage and current flow. Excellent job and my hat is off to you.

[The_Pariah]

You're able to convey information in a way that people don't just hear what you're saying but they understand it.
You use technical terms when appropriate and you also break down their meanings and give insight into what things really mean instead of leaving it behind a technically accepted definition of the word.
The point is, being able to teach things effectively and in a way that the majority understand is not a common trait.
I hope you continue to make more content and keep exercising this ability. Good teachers are hard to find.

[mozkitolife]

It’s like having a reservoir the size of the oceans and adding a cup of water at one side and having a cup spill out the other side thousands of kilometres away. The individual water molecules don’t move very far or fast, but it’s the influence that each molecule has on the next, ie a wave, is what is carrying the electric potential effect on the other side.
This is a bit of an epiphany for me. Thank you, Brian. 🥲

[Randomkloud]

"Height isn't a measure of energy."

As a hydraulic engineer I took that personally.

[TJShare]

My hat is off to you AlphaPhoenix because you've succeeded at completing a task that I've been trying (and failing) to do for over 40 years : i.e., Fully explaining Ohm's law and making it understandable to a layperson with no prerequisite EE knowledge in under one hour. You're the teaching hero my family needed! Many thanks to you for taking the time to make the video :)

[stiegheilmerolsson]

This video goes right into my playlist "The best videos of the entire YouTube". So many questions that I've been wondering over from day to day at my job as an electician is awesomely explained.

[Xettera]

Am 45 and struggled for years to grasp voltage vs amps. This video finally made it all make sense. Thank you!!!

[runforitman]

I only started AC analysis this year
but i love how all our maths is just making everything work with ohms law

[kennethcfogarty]

I really feel blessed to have found this post. I am in awe of the intensity of enthusiasm which you display !
Thank you

[architectlogin]

Have struggled with the water model for years due to lack integration of particle physics and too much anthropomorphic metaphors. This has helped a ton. Thank you for working so hard on the visuals.

[thetruthexperiment]

Thank you for being intelligent enough to teach without answering questions with an equation. Equations arent answers, they’re just tools that explain absolutely nothing about how or why. Thank you sir.

[FAB]

As an EE dropout that became a hobbyist and still loves this stuff... This video is fantastic! I'm gonna use it to explain the concepts to others. It's so intuitive!

[vinicus]

As always, no matter how much you know about a subject this channel always finds a different way to make you visualize the concepts!!! I love your work man, it’s of extremely high quality! That model you used to describe the random movement of electrons is AMAZING.

[banjotramp]

These videos are the best I've ever seen explaining how this stuff works. My understanding (I've taught this stuff a bunch of times, not sure how effectively) of something as simple as ohm's law has been taken up a level with this video. I never thought as deeply as you have.

Decades ago when I worked as a carpenter and messed up some siding cuts on some rather expensive redwood vertical siding, a more experienced fellow told me to "think like a drop of water" That explained everything.

You are doing the same thing for electrons. Great work!

[skivvy]

I cannot tell you how thankful I am for this. I always struggle when I can’t see ‘how’ and ‘why’ things work, and I had this issue in school where we learned to memorize things but were never explained why. It’s only as an adult that I’m relearning things for fun that i never fully grasped while supposed to be learning it

[willo]

This is why you are one of the best content creators out there. You have a talent for explaining complex phenomena in ways that can be easily understood.

[How_Many_Monkeys]

This is some really heavy stuff that would normally be miles over my head, but you’ve found a way to explain it simply while not watering down the important points. Very well done my dude 👌