system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: If I have an electrical circuit, run a current through it, and then suddenly interrupt the circuit, what happens to the electricity still within the circuit?
gpt
Imagine a channel of water. On one end you pump in water, on the other end you suck water away. Imagine that you suddenly stop doing both. The water briefly builds up due to leftover inertia and then it stops moving.

Same thing in a circuit. The electrons are slowly moving through your circuit. If you interrupt it the electrons stop moving. Electricity is the movement of the electrons in one direction, not the electrons themselves.

The brief buildup also has an equivalent in electricity, inductance in electrical circuits is equivalent to inertia in water flows. So if you take a big coil (lots of inductance) and you suddenly interrupt a current flowing through it you get a pretty damn big spark. That's how spark plugs in your car work.