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- PULL on the rod, and the brush heats the floor
frictionally. Or
PUSH on the rod, and the same thing happens. It
doesn't matter which direction you move the rod; in
both cases the energy flows in just one direction: from
muscles to floor.
In a circuit, the column of electrons inside a wire
functions as the "long rod."
When a generator is used to light up a light bulb, it
doesn't matter which way the electrons flow (or whether they
vibrate instead of being DC.) The energy still moves in one
direction from generator to bulb. To make the analogy a bit
more complete, replace the rod with a circle of rope which
passes around two pulleys. When you force one pulley to
turn, the other one turns too. Attach your scrub-brush to
any point on the rope. When you turn one of the pulleys,
the brush scrubs the floor. The rope has the same function
as the "loop" of electrons which exists inside an electric
circuit.