system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Do electrical cables have a jerk effect, similar to a water hose, would the voltage/throughput matter?
gpt
Yes, in two ways. Firstly when you send a voltage down a wire, if the wire is say, unconnected, the pulse can reflect at the end because of the impedance mismatch and briefly create a small voltage spike. This brief spike can be up to double the signal voltage so if your signal is high to begin with it can cause a problem. Even connected cables still experience this, so If you want a good signal on long cables they need to be impedance-matched to stop voltages bouncing back and forth at junctions and disrupting any data you are sending along the cable.

Secondly the rush of current along a cable creates a magnetic field around the wire. Depending on the orientation of the wire (kinked or wound) this can create opposing magnetic fields which push against each other. If the current is very high, the cable can move slightly, though most high current cables would be too heavy to notice much movement.