Re: Since electrons move slowly, why doesn't a table show visible signs of movement?

Sandra,

Well, I'm not exactly sure *which* speed of an electron you're referring to, because it depends on the situation. I suspect that you're talking about drift velocity which only occurs in the presence of an electric field. This may have led to some confusion regarding the velocity of electrons in wood or a table?

But even so, there is electron motion going on inside a table. Every atom in the table has an electron cloud with electrons moving all around at very high speeds (e.g. ~2,000,000 m/s). The reason you can't see these electrons moving around is two-fold: 1) The electrons are too small to see (the radius of an electron is less than 10^-18 m) and 2) The electrons aren't moving very far. In fact the entire radius of a hydrogen atom, for example, is 5.29 x 10^-11 m. Motion on such a small scale is not possible for us to see with the naked eye.

Hope that clears up your question!
Amber