The atomic matrix and drift velocity

In RSI, overlapping atomic shadows form a pressure manifold, and electrons move through a material only where that manifold leaves open channels. Whether a material conducts depends on whether its outermost electrons have open states to move into, not on the symmetry of its crystal alone. Carbon conducts as graphite and insulates as diamond, and silicon, with the same structure as diamond, is a semiconductor. In metals such as copper, each atom's outermost electron is shared across the whole lattice, and the shadows form continuous channels where electron-knots drift easily. In insulators every outer electron is held in a bond, the channels are closed, and the knots stay tethered to their local nodes.

This also resolves a well-known puzzle. An electrical signal travels at nearly the speed of light, while the electrons themselves drift at fractions of a millimeter per second. The signal is an electromagnetic wave guided along the wire, a transverse ripple in the medium's tension. It travels through the space around the conductors at the speed of light in the insulation, typically 50 to 99 percent of c = √(Ξ / μ), and the energy flows through the field outside the metal. The electrons are not sluggish; their random motion inside copper is about 1.6 million meters per second. They drift slowly because the current is shared among an enormous number of them. The medium carries the message; the knots carry the charge.

The lattice still answers to the 0.73 N clamp. When a knot's vibrational fatigue exceeds what the medium can restore, the lock fails, and the knot resolves back into the Rest-State.