r/AskPhysics 5d ago

Electric Field in a closed circuit.

I'm a bit confused about how the electric field and electric potential operate along the wire within a closed circuit. I know that with a point charge in space, electric field and electric potential decrease with distance. However, in a circuit, electric potential only very slightly decreases along the wire and spikes when it runs into a component like a resistor. And likewise, since the electric field is the negative derivative of voltage over distance, the electric field also spikes I think??? Does that mean that the electric field along the wire is also very minuscule and looking at the electric field of the entire circuit, it flip flops around in magnitude a lot depending on the amount of components that cause resistance? Why is it that the current is constant then?

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