Electron drift velocity through mean free time
I have feeling this might turn into one of the stupidest questions I ever asked here...
In Wikipedia, I found two articles were the electron drift velocity is expressed (directly or indirectly) as qτE/m, where q is electric charge, τ mean free time, E electric field strength, and m electron mass (or effective mass). Shouldn't this be half of that, so qτE/2m? Like the average velocity of the electrons (as if the electrons would come to a full stop every time they collide). If this is not the case then how is qτE/m derived?
The Wikipedia articles:
Posted Jul 30, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC
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