What the Wire Carries

AbstractWhen current flows in a wire, what moves? Not the electrons — their drift velocity is 0.073mm/s for 1 A in 1 mm² copper, and hopping atom to atom at light speed is impossible[borrowed]. Not free photons (aaa) either — photons ride the background and departwithout a medium, whereas electricity cannot leave the wire. In the lattice of WavonMechanics one candidate remains: among the field seats {a, aa, aaa}, the one with nocirculating mode and hence unable to depart, aa (2790, Theorem 4). This paper reads thereason aa cannot ride the background as a seesaw: three identical wavons (aaa) form a self-locking 120° balance with zero mass and cohabit with the background, but two (aa) have nothird to hold them, their balance is unstable and tips at the slightest disturbance, so amaterial medium (the wire) is required and that medium acts as resistance. The predictionfrom this picture — electricity in a wire does not travel at light speed — is compared withmeasurement: signal speeds of 0.6–0.9c confirm the direction. The divergence in cause(standard: dielectric permittivity of insulation / this framework: medium resistance) isresolved by the unification in the complex permittivity ε = ε′ − iε″, and that unificationrefines the prediction: what vanishes at absolute zero is scattering (ε″, loss), while holding(ε′, velocity) remains as long as a medium exists. Hence 'absolute zero = light speed' mustbe corrected to 'absolute zero = zero loss; velocity is set by the presence of a medium' toagree with superconductor measurements. Three kill conditions are registered. Everyagreement with the standard is reproduction; no score is claimed.