On the mysteries of federal e-mail servers

[dorminWS]

I’ve thought electrons comprising electricity traveled as close to the speed of light as the resistance of whatever the conductor allowed. It seems I was wrong.

Yesterday morning I had a federal bureaucrat with a Richmond area code (804) tell me she has sent me an e-mail. Along about 2-3 pm, I had still not received that e-mail, and called to tell her that. She responded she would re-send.

The e-mail finally showed up in my inbox time-stamped (in my inbox) at 5:23 pm. In the header of the e-mail itself it was time-stamped 11:03 am. (By the way, the e-mail was demanding information be furnished by 5:00 pm)

That got the rusty gears in my wore-out old head to turnin’. It took that e-mail exactly 6 hours and 20 minutes to come the 360 miles from Richmond to here. 360 divided by 6.333 works out to just about 60 miles per hour. That's a far cry from the speed of light, ain't it? She could have driven down here and hand-delivered a note slightly faster than US government e-mail delivered the e-mail.

Looks like Hillary and Lois Lerner ain’t the only federal bureaucrats whose e-mail server does weird sh—tuff.

[jdonovan]

eh' depending on the config, the mail server could hold the message undelivered for up to 5 days.

back in the bad old days of the 'net not everything was connected full-time and you occasionally had to wait for the recipient to dial in to get the waiting mail for the site.

[OakRidgeStars]

Yeah, this reminded me of my early IT days when I was a cc:Mail administrator. For all we know, the guvbmint could still be using some similar ancient technology.

[Rualert]

Well you know it all has to transition through the NSA, FBI, add any other 3 letter agency you want here, then get passed on to the actual recipient. JK guys, I work It also, and depending on where this person might work, actual office, home office, remote field, it could have very well just hit a mail queue, along with 3 million pieces of spam that all needed processing before it was actually sent on it's way.

[MarcSpaz]

Eh. Basic principals of electron flow doesn't apply to the government. I heard its discriminatory too allow fiber to move data at 300,000,000 mps while we prevent copper from doing the same job, even though the fiber is more qualified. So they had to use a minimum number feet of twisted pair to meet their diversification quota.

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[AlanM]

Actually electron flow through a copper conductor is quite slow.
The ENERGY flow, however, propagates at about 90% of the speed of light in a vacuum. Actual propagation delay will depend upon the cable's inductance and capacitance characteristics.

Imagine a pipe filled with ball bearings that are just slightly smaller in diameter than the ID of the pipe.
Now hold one end of the pipe up to a concrete block wall and smack the ball bearing at the open end with a hammer.
The ball bearings won't move very far, if at all, but the energy wave transmitted from bearing to bearing will possibly crack the concrete.

If you're interested I'll run the numbers for how long it takes an electron to travel around an electric fence that encloses a 1 mile by 1 mile field with 1 amp of current flow.
Some assumptions have to be made but the electron velocity is quite slow.
For this calculation a couple of things have to be defined or assumed.
You have to define the gauge of wire used. The thicker the wire the slower the electron flow at 1 amp.
I assume one free electron per copper atom. More free electrons would mean slower electron flow.

[MarcSpaz]

Alan, you know I love you right??? You know how to tell when someone is being sarcastic? LOL

[SpanishInquisition]

AlamM is correct.

That being said, I still add a few sacrificial lines to the bottom of important emails. Remember Shub-Internet, Eater of Email?

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[MarcSpaz]

AlamM is correct.

That being said, I still add a few sacrificial lines to the bottom of important emails. Remember Shub-Internet, Eater of Email?

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

Fine, if you want to get technical... you're both wrong. An amp is 6.28 x 10^18 of electrons flowing past one point in one second... otherwise know as a coulomb second. If the rate of electrons is slower... its no longer an amp of current flow, because now fewer electrons are flowing past that one given point per second. But don't take my word for it... look it up.

[WRW]

AlamM is correct.

That being said, I still add a few sacrificial lines to the bottom of important emails. Remember Shub-Internet, Eater of Email?

[ Post made via Mobile Device ]

Fine, if you want to get technical... you're both wrong. An amp is 6.28 x 10^18 of electrons flowing past one point in one second... otherwise know as a coulomb second. If the rate of electrons is slower... its no longer an amp of current flow, because now fewer electrons are flowing past that one given point per second. But don't take my word for it... look it up.

The current flow in larger wire is slower because there are more atoms available in a cross section of said point that the electrons must flow past. Double the size of wire and four times the electrons are available.

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[WRW]

Gotta throttle back them electrons.

So, is this an intentionally allegorical thread? GENIUSES!!!

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[MarcSpaz]

Resistance is the opposition to current flow. Its caused by the collision of electrons and the amount of energy absorbed/transferred to the next atom (mostly determined the by atomic valence of the material). The resistance of any material increases as it gets longer, but decrease with increasing cross-sectional area. Of course, that depends on all things being equal. Then, the speed at which data flows is actually contingent on the speed that the energy field moves down the conductor, not the actual movement of electrons. Take vacuum out of the picture, because even below sea level, electro magnetic fields still move near the speed of light in our atmosphere. And don't get me started down the road of introducing AC, the frequency wave length, and things like skin effect... because then it gets to the point where I'll have to hold a 16 week class.


Anyway, even if you completely disagree with me, Alan said... and I quote "The thicker the wire the slower the electron flow at 1 amp." So, lets bring this down to something everyone who drives can understand.

We know that an amp is speed. The speed of an amp is 6.28 x 10^18 of electrons flowing past one point in one second. Saying "The thicker the wire the slower the electron flow at 1 amp", is like saying driving at 60 MPH in the mud is slower than driving 60 MPH on a clean paved highway. Well, no, its not. 60 MPH is 60 MPH.. Doesn't matter where you're driving and an amp is an amp, regardless of what the electrons are flowing through.

[WRW]

Think more at volume past a point in a given time, rather than velocity. If velocity is maintained but lanes are doubled, twice the traffic would pass the same point...electrically, you would not be measuring one amp with twice the electron flow in the same time frame.

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[OakRidgeStars]

I'm not worried about the electrons and neutrons. It's the morons that worry me.

[Palladin]

Pee on Alan's electric fence and tell me again how fast is an electron?

[AlanM]

OK, you asked for it.
Given:
1 Amp = a Coulomb per second.
1 Coulomb = 6.28 x 10^18 electrons
Avogadro's number, number of units in one mole of any substance (defined as its molecular weight in grams), equal to 6.02214129 × 10^23.
Therefore the number of Coulombs (assuming one free electron per atom) per mole is 95,894.
Molecular weight of Copper = 63.546

From http://www.engineersedge.com/copper_wire.htm
20 gauge wire is 0.0320 inches (or 0.812 mm) in diameter and is a reasonable size for a strand of electric fence.
20 gauge copper wire weighs 3.092 lbs per 1000 ft.
One pound = 454.545 grams.

that's 1405.45454 grams per 1000 ft.
1.4054545455 grams/foot
Therefore 46.464 feet per Mole of CU.
45.464 times 95,894 Coulombs per Mole equals 2063.834 Coulombs per foot.
or 0.0004845352 Ft/Coulomb
or 0.0058144219 inches/Coulomb

A little under 6 thouandths of an inch per second is pretty darn slow in my book.
OBTW - that's 1.744 ft/hour.

[SHMIV]

All these maths. Confusing.

I don't know if it makes a difference, but I have experience with electric fences. I have installed them, been shocked by them, and lived with them. (I had goats when I was growing up. )

I've been around electric fences owned by others.

I said all that to validate this statement:

I've never seen copper wire used as electric fence wire.

This wire, here, is 14 gauge galvanized steel wire:

http://m.acehardware.com/product/index. ... Id=1277473

They also have 17 gauge wire, also in galvanized steel.

I don't know if that affects the math, but it sure derails the thread a bit further.

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[SHMIV]

Oh, by the way, since the subject of peeing on electric fences came up in the derailment...

I've never done it, myself, but my friends little brother peed on my electric fence, once. I didn't see it, but I sure as hell heard it, as did everyone else within a 2 mile radius. The consequence of that action produced the loudest and highest pitch shriek that I have ever heard. We found that poor kid shaking and weeping uncontrollably by the fence. I knew exactly what had happened.

Funny that came up. A lady happened to ask me, last week, if there was any truth to the rumor that it was painful to pee on an electric fence.

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[AlanM]

I actually found a site that actually presents the calculation for electron drift (current) in a copper wire.

The above was just a seat-of-the-pants calculation. For a more scholarly version check this out.
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hb ... hmmic.html
Warning: the math's pretty heavy, but it turns out that Copper does have 1 free electron per atom and my results are in the ball park compared to this site's.

For ordinary currents, this drift velocity is on the order of millimeters per second

I agree that 20 gauge wire is small for a fence and copper is pretty soft to be used as fencing.
I only used a four mile fence to get a long wire people could visualize and relate to.

17 gauge wire has almost double the cross sectional area of 20 gauge so electron drift velocity will be about half as fast.

[MarcSpaz]

Is now a bad time to mention Heisenberg's uncertainty principle?

Remember, if you're not part of the problem, you're part of the precipitate.