Why is current so small in size?

[xheavenlyx]

actually, even my teachers told me the same. But its like this: (sorry, I had an excellent link on Lies and Myths of Electrical Engineering, lost it or dont rem).

Yea so here is an explaination:

... individual electrons do not continue through the conductor in straight line paths, but instead they move in a random zig-zag motion, changing directions as they collide with atoms in the conductor. (the speed of this random motion is called drift velocity)

So electrons do travel BUT they dont "Circulate" the "Circuit"!

For example, the drift speed through a copper wire of cross-sectional area 3.00 x 10-6 m2, with a current of 10 A will be approximately 2.5 x 10-4 m/s or about a quarter of a milimeter per second.

Thats slower than your car! i.e: 30 km/hr is 8333.33 mm/sec!

So how does it travel SO fast?

So how does an electrical device turn on near instantaneously? If you think of a copper wire as a pipe completely filled with water, then forcing a drop of water in one end will result in a drop at the other end being pushed out very quickly. This is analogous to initiating an electric field in a conductor.

Information from Matt G., Engineering Student, University of Texas at Austin and Anton Skorucak, PhysLink.com Editor

But still try not to use the water analogy (a lot) with electric current as they are very different. Thats the reason for kritchoffs voltage and current law being a bit difficult. (It was hell for me even though I loved the subject...my basics were shrewd up)