Sparky,
Sparky wrote:I am sure that "flow" means many things to different people.
I'm not sure that I agree with you on this. I think that the majority of people believe that there is some form of physical transfer from source to load. This is either a stream of electrons carrying their action-at-a-distance charge with them, which they then deposit at the load so that work can be done (this is basically the EU suggestion for the electric Sun), or, there are electromagnetic "waves of energy". The reasoning is that you burn coal at one end and the light bulb shines at the other end, so "electrical energy" (apparently energy comes in different forms) must be transferred from source to load.
The problem that we are presented with is that many of the words used to describe electricity are erroneous, because they belong to erroneous ideas. The 200 year old legacy is that of an analogy to the motion of a fluid. In an attempt to adhere to this preconception we have either a flow of electrons or, somewhat laughably, "electromagnetic waves" forming in the "dielectric". Electromagnetic waves are of course as real as black holes and are created by the same process of delusional mathematics combined with wishful thinking.
So do we take the descriptive words we have and try to apply them, even though they are incorrect? or try to introduce a new set of terms that might more accurately describe a logically realistic physical process. Well what does electricity consist of? There is the operation and orientation of free electrons that displays as transverse and longitudinal "fields", i.e. B and E field respectively. Already the term "field" is misleading because the "field" is simply the detectable and mappable force vectors produced by the interaction of external objects and the resultant of coherent/polarised emission of the free electrons. The transverse/B field is the "current" and the
predominantly longitudinal/E field is the "potential difference"
(obviously the transverse/B field may also include a transverse component of the predominantly, but not exclusively, longitudinal/E field). The "current" IS the "magnetic" B-field, one does not create the other, they are the exact same process. There is no "flow" and there is no flow of "current". These terms are about as useful for understanding electricity as are "gravitational collapse" and "event horizon" for understanding the wide variety of astronomical phenomena assigned to black holes.
Sparky wrote:.... even though it is still logical speculation.
As opposed to the illogical speculation of flow, current, potential difference and electromagnetic waves.
Michael