Herman
I'm sticking with the idea that flow means something moving in one direction.
But it doesn't mean that the direction never changes. Electric current is always flowing in one direction at any given time. The only difference between DC and AC is that under AC conditions, the direction changes periodically. But while the current is flowing, it's flowing in one direction.
From the Oxford English Dictionary for flow:
"The action or fact of flowing ; movement in a current or stream ; an INSTANCE or MODE of this."
And for current:
"That which runs or flows, a stream ; spec. a portion of a body of water, or of air, etc. MOVING IN A DEFINITE DIRECTION."
Whether the current is flowing in one direction during one half of the cycle, or in the opposite direction during the other half of the cycle, it is indeed moving in a definite direction. It is an instance of flow. It is a current. An alternating current.
I also believe you are backward regarding the relationship of EM wave and current. I also don't accept that you can talk about the M without the E. They are intertwined and inseparable..
Yes, they are intertwined, but that is irrelevant to the point I was trying to make.
I was responding to your having said:
"The fact that if using a wire there is a resultant moving about of electrons is really just a side effect. It is not the cause. They are wiggling about because there is an electromagnetic wave passing by. The wiggling about is not causing the wave."
Specifically the last sentence.
Keeping with the context of this discussion, i.e. audio cables, all your source component does is simply apply a potential difference across its outputs. It doesn't apply an electromagnetic wave as without a completed circuit such as connecting a cable between the source component and the downstream component, there will be no current flow. And without current flow, there can be no magnetic field.
Now hook up your cables.
The potential difference applied across them by the source component provides the electromotive force which causes the electrons in the cables to flow in the direction dictated by the polarity of the potential difference.
It is only the flow of these electrons, these charged particles, which produces the magnetic field.
So it is indeed the "wiggling" that's causing the wave. No wiggling, no magnetic field. No magnetic field, no EM wave.
Since the wave can travel without current it is illogical to conclude that the wave is caused by the current the current.
But it is. Whether it's the current flowing through your audio cables, or the current flowing through a radio antenna. It's all about the movement of charge.
EM radio waves can travel down a wire but they can also travel from the transmitter to your radio no problem, no current. When that radio wave intersects your receiving antenna it sets the charges in motion, not the charges setting the wave in motion.
In order to create the wave that sets the charges in motion in the receiving antenna, there had to have been charges in motion in the transmitting antenna which produced the radio wave in the first place.
