If I have an ideal wire and I connect a battery to it, then the potential drop is zero along the wire, right? So, all its points must be at the same potential. Well, that means charges ( which are initially assumed to be at rest) will not go from one point to another in the wire. There's one more question to it. I've read in books that if the terminals of a battery are connected by an ideal wire, then all the points on the wire have the same potential as the potential of the positive terminal of the battery. But why don't all the points of the wire have the potential same as that of the negative terminal of the battery instead by similar logic? (because all the points of the wire are also connected to the negative terminal with zero resistance, and hence, zero potential drop along the way).
Here's how I tried to explain it. Please tell me if I'm wrong: Even if all the wire has zero resistance, then still charges are transferred through it because it's points are not at the same potential even if the wire has zero resistance. Yes, there is no potential drop due to resistance but there is a potential drop due to the kinetic energy gained by the charges as they more along the wire. So, it's points are at different potentials even with no resistance, because, at the end of the day, what we're talking about is the usual electric field, which will push charges to points of lower potentials even if there is no resistance along the way.
But according to this explanation of mine, a potentiometer would never work, because if my explanation is true, then charges would still be transferred along the wire containing the galvanometer even if both the points of that wire are at the same potential. So, where am I wrong?
It's not a duplicate. I've asked one more question in the details.
