In article , Tom Watson wrote:
I had a conversation with a friend of mine today who has a masters in
electrical engineering.

This degree was conferred by the same school that I went to
(Villanova) about a hundred years ago, so I must inherently trust him.

Yet...

The question that I asked him, which I thought to be simple enough,
was - do the electrons travel down the circumference of the wire, or
do they travel through the core of the wire?

He told me that that is an unknown.

This was very surprising to me as I thought that it would be easily
tested.

Could we not create a wire of a core of inert material and coat it
with a conductor and measure the difference between a wire of the pure
element and that of the coated variety?

This seemed to be not within his reckoning.

The reason that it is important, to me, is that, if the electrons only
travel on the circumference, that circumference may be folded into a
smaller section than that described by the original, and wires would
not have to be so thick.

Would y'all please try to help me out of this conundrum?

Is my friend a poseur?

No, I don't think your friend is a poseur, but I don't think he completely
understood the drift of your question, either.

In an alternating-current circuit, electric *charge* travels on the surface of
the conductor, and to some depth below the surface. Google on "skin effect"
for more information, or ask your friend; I'm sure he must be familiar with
the concept. Moving electric charge is not quite the same as moving electrons,
and if you phrased your question specifically with regard to electrons, he may
not have made the connection to skin effect -- especially if you didn't tell
him why you wanted to know.


--
Regards,
Doug Miller (alphageek at milmac dot com)

It's time to throw all their damned tea in the harbor again.