Understanding Energy Flow in a DC Circuit with a Capacitor and Resistor"

[kodimmudi]

Let's say you have a DC circuit with a capacitor and a resistor.

How does electromagnetic energy flow within the system? Through the wires? In space between and around wires?

N.B. Why/how would EM energy flow in the first place?

 

[HallsofIvy]

In a DC circuit, the energy travels through the circuit primarily as the kinetic energy of the moving electrons. The capacitor, where the electrons may not actually cross from one plate to another, is an exception. There the electric force of one electron, arriving at a plate, pushes an electron off the other plate. That, of course, causes the first electron to stop and the second to move so the electrical force has transferred the kinetic energy from one electron to the other.

 

[kodimmudi]

My lecturer tells me that the EM energy does not flow through the wire! I don't know what to believe, really!

Also, how is this related to Poynting's Theorem?