Hi Kai,

I understand what you mean now. And you are correct that electrons flow very slowly. Typically electrical current flows, or drifts, at a speed comparable to walking or maybe jogging. It really depends on impedance and potential. In general though, electron speeds are very much on the same order of magnitude as human locomotion, not the speed of light. Otherwise we wouldn't need to spend billions of dollars building electron beam accelerators.

And while it might be more accurate to say that electrons drift rather than flow, you really can't say that the E field, or its scalar potential (the voltage), flows. It's more accurate to say that it propogates.

Semantics aside, you are quite correct to note that it is the E field, its scalar potential (the voltage), that propogates at near the speed of light. This is a major cause of many high speed digital effects on circuit boards.

As for capacitors, you should remember that neither the E field, nor its scalar potential (the voltage), has a charge. Only the electrons have charge. The E field and potential have polarity, but not charge. Thus, for a capacitor to be charged it is necessary that electrons be physically removed from one plate and added to the other. But they don't have to be the same electrons. The electrons drawn from one side will likely stay somewhere in the wire near the capacitor plate. And the electrons added to the other plate will come, not from a battery or other source, but from the wire right near the plate. But there really is physically an imbalance in electrons, in actual charge. It really is very analagous to water in a pipe. But if you mean that we don't have to wait for the same electrons to get from one plate all the way around the circuit to the other plate, you are quite correct.

Joe