In electric circuits, the charge carriers are electrons, which are already inside the wire itself. The battery doesn’t add extra electrons to the circuit to make it go… the electrons inside the wires are already there. The battery provides an electric potential difference that signals the electrons to start moving, and this signal travels at the speed of light (or close to it), and then the electrons start moving (quite a bit slower than the speed of light). This means that electrons don’t have to start at the battery and them go all the way to the light before the light bulb lights up, because the electrons inside the filament itself are the ones that start glowing when they get the signal to start moving.

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All electrons everywhere start moving as soon as they get that signal from the battery, like like water flowing in the hose that we saw in the teleclass video. The electrons themselves don’t get used up, but rather the energy carried by the electrons is transformed to other forms of energy (including heat, light, sound, motion, etc.). The charge itself doesn’t transform or get used up, just the energy itself. Kids use up their energy as they run, play, and jump , and need to refuel before they can go back in the afternoon to the playground. The kids don’t get used up, but rather the energy the kid is carrying is being transformed from chemical energy int the food to motion energy , and needs to be replenished when the kid runs out of energy.

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