There's a confusion this article isn't helpful with: there are physical electrons, the actual physicalparticles. They move in the metal very slowly. But, their motion propagates very quickly, and turns out that the change in motion acts almost exactly like an electron itself, up to having a different mass. This is the "electron" quasi-particle, which is the abstraction that's breaking down. this only shows up about a screen or two deep into the article.
I thought these concepts are lower division EE undergrad concepts? AC power clearly depends on electron motion and electron drift velocity is one of the first things they teach about electricity. Maybe I'm a dummy and I'm missing something but I don't understand why this is groundbreaking.
