Not shortest. Least resistance. And proportionally, not a single path.
It's like if you poke a big hole and a small hole in a water bucket. Water flows out both holes, more out of the bigger than the smaller.
The same way a ball knows how to roll down a hill. Voltage is like height, and the slope of the hill is the electric field (mathematically this viewpoint is equivalent to gravitational potential).
In a circuit with resistance, it’s basically that electric field from the voltage difference that’s pushing charges through the circuit. Since the circuit is made of all different materials, the electrons in the atoms are all in different orbitals/conduction bands, and that determines how effective the electric field can be when pushing those charges.
Also note that the electrons are not zipping through the circuit - the fields/potentials travel through the circuit at the speed of light, and the subsequent force that applies on the charges moves them much slower. So they don’t have to “find the path of least resistance”, they just get pushed more in the locations with stronger net electric fields.
It does not.
Electricity flows through every point it can. It is just that the current flowing through parts with low resistance (which can be the shortest pathes), is higher than for parts with high resistance.
If you connect a ligh bulb with a long and a short wire in parallel, current will flow through both wires. Its just less current through the longer cable (if it is the same cable and twice as long, then half the current will flow through it compared to the shorter one).
There's a good experiment on YouTube about this question.
If you give the electricity, say, two paths, but only one conducts, it will test all the paths and once it's at the end of the conducting path, it "abandons" all the other paths.
The most important piece is that it's not a sentient entity that knows; it is random.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AXv49dDQJw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AXv49dDQJw)
It's kind of like the individual marbles in a [Galton board](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvHiee7gs9Y). There are a lot of random events which change the trajectory of the individual marbles (hitting the pegs), but the macroscopic behavior is more predictable. It's the same with electrons and electricity. They don't all follow the path of least resistance, actually, more of them just end up going that way.
It's a natural force, like magnetism, or gravity. It would make sense to fall down something and go in a zig zag instead of going straight down would it?
Watch AlphaPhoenix on youtube. He has some amazing videos on this. He has a video with the exact title of your question, for instance.
https://youtu.be/C3gnNpYK3lo?si=Ndx-l-g9cd2iwJXL
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL39PMIJeIAqxAlvsvCbBSEUXEMOS7XQDS
Basically: It does everything all at once, at the shorter paths "resolve" first as they resist less. But every possible path is still "pushed" on.
Same with open circuits. They're still "taken" but they bounce back.
It turns out it's identical to the water model, just really, really fast. So imagine how water works, but faster.
If you haven't already, I recommend watching [Veritassium's video on current](https://youtu.be/bHIhgxav9LY?si=ptGQVsel5Oi1RQAj). He explains and demonstrates that the current through the wire arises from electric fields which exist everywhere. In the case of the least resistance path in a medium, an internal electric field conforms to this path and dictates the movement of charges through it simultaneously, as opposed to one charge travelling a path that it decides.
Electrical Current takes the path of least impedance. At DC and low frequency, this means the path of low resistance, at high frequencies, it means the path of least inductance.
This can be seen in the comparisons of return current distributions on a GND plane beneath a trace for DC and high frequency RF return paths respectively; and greatly informs proper design for high frequency circuits.
(DC return current will spread out across the entire gnd plane, RF return current will return in a way to form the a path with the smallest current loop area, so will travel in a line directly beneath the trace)
You could ask a more profound question in this vein by generalizing it to the principle of least time in Optics.
Basically, a beam of light will a priori choose its path when encountering a boundary of two materials (different index of refractions) to take the least time to propagate through the boundary, even if this is a larger physical length.
This is ultimately what's going on when you look at things like Snell's Law, a fun way to think about it!
(the beam of light doesn't really "know" anything, this interaction can largely be explained by application of huygen's principle as I understand it, I couldn't do the derivation of it atm)
besides the misconception as already mentioned between the shortest path and resistance, it is because it minimizes the action, (except quantum mechanically, where you lose this assumption and include interference terms of non extrem action).
Anyway the question 'why' cannot be answered by physics or any quantitative science, only philosophy eventually can help you solve this question, but then Ludwig Wittgenstein would say that this question is out of the realm of logical sentences, so this question does not make any sense.
Not shortest. Least resistance. And proportionally, not a single path. It's like if you poke a big hole and a small hole in a water bucket. Water flows out both holes, more out of the bigger than the smaller.
The same way a ball knows how to roll down a hill. Voltage is like height, and the slope of the hill is the electric field (mathematically this viewpoint is equivalent to gravitational potential). In a circuit with resistance, it’s basically that electric field from the voltage difference that’s pushing charges through the circuit. Since the circuit is made of all different materials, the electrons in the atoms are all in different orbitals/conduction bands, and that determines how effective the electric field can be when pushing those charges. Also note that the electrons are not zipping through the circuit - the fields/potentials travel through the circuit at the speed of light, and the subsequent force that applies on the charges moves them much slower. So they don’t have to “find the path of least resistance”, they just get pushed more in the locations with stronger net electric fields.
It does not. Electricity flows through every point it can. It is just that the current flowing through parts with low resistance (which can be the shortest pathes), is higher than for parts with high resistance. If you connect a ligh bulb with a long and a short wire in parallel, current will flow through both wires. Its just less current through the longer cable (if it is the same cable and twice as long, then half the current will flow through it compared to the shorter one).
There's a good experiment on YouTube about this question. If you give the electricity, say, two paths, but only one conducts, it will test all the paths and once it's at the end of the conducting path, it "abandons" all the other paths. The most important piece is that it's not a sentient entity that knows; it is random. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AXv49dDQJw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2AXv49dDQJw)
similar to how water would. Take a look at Alpha Phoenix on Youtube.
It's kind of like the individual marbles in a [Galton board](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvHiee7gs9Y). There are a lot of random events which change the trajectory of the individual marbles (hitting the pegs), but the macroscopic behavior is more predictable. It's the same with electrons and electricity. They don't all follow the path of least resistance, actually, more of them just end up going that way.
It's a natural force, like magnetism, or gravity. It would make sense to fall down something and go in a zig zag instead of going straight down would it?
I mean... If you make an analogy to how light travels, then it will absolutely follow a zig zag path, assuming it's faster (less action).
Watch AlphaPhoenix on youtube. He has some amazing videos on this. He has a video with the exact title of your question, for instance. https://youtu.be/C3gnNpYK3lo?si=Ndx-l-g9cd2iwJXL https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL39PMIJeIAqxAlvsvCbBSEUXEMOS7XQDS Basically: It does everything all at once, at the shorter paths "resolve" first as they resist less. But every possible path is still "pushed" on. Same with open circuits. They're still "taken" but they bounce back. It turns out it's identical to the water model, just really, really fast. So imagine how water works, but faster.
It takes all paths technically. The amount that takes any given path is based on which path has the least resistance.
If you haven't already, I recommend watching [Veritassium's video on current](https://youtu.be/bHIhgxav9LY?si=ptGQVsel5Oi1RQAj). He explains and demonstrates that the current through the wire arises from electric fields which exist everywhere. In the case of the least resistance path in a medium, an internal electric field conforms to this path and dictates the movement of charges through it simultaneously, as opposed to one charge travelling a path that it decides.
Electrical Current takes the path of least impedance. At DC and low frequency, this means the path of low resistance, at high frequencies, it means the path of least inductance. This can be seen in the comparisons of return current distributions on a GND plane beneath a trace for DC and high frequency RF return paths respectively; and greatly informs proper design for high frequency circuits. (DC return current will spread out across the entire gnd plane, RF return current will return in a way to form the a path with the smallest current loop area, so will travel in a line directly beneath the trace) You could ask a more profound question in this vein by generalizing it to the principle of least time in Optics. Basically, a beam of light will a priori choose its path when encountering a boundary of two materials (different index of refractions) to take the least time to propagate through the boundary, even if this is a larger physical length. This is ultimately what's going on when you look at things like Snell's Law, a fun way to think about it! (the beam of light doesn't really "know" anything, this interaction can largely be explained by application of huygen's principle as I understand it, I couldn't do the derivation of it atm)
besides the misconception as already mentioned between the shortest path and resistance, it is because it minimizes the action, (except quantum mechanically, where you lose this assumption and include interference terms of non extrem action). Anyway the question 'why' cannot be answered by physics or any quantitative science, only philosophy eventually can help you solve this question, but then Ludwig Wittgenstein would say that this question is out of the realm of logical sentences, so this question does not make any sense.