How can I calculate the wave propagation

speed in a copper wire?

First of all: I am a computer science student, so I don't have much knowledge
of physics. So please keep your answers simple.
I recently learned something about circuit design and its problems (differend
kinds of hazards). To model the problems, we introduced a "dead time model"
("Totzeitmodel" in German, I have if it is "dead time model" in English)
We added some dead time to each element of the circuit, but we didn't add
dead time to the wires of the circuit. I asked the prof. why we didn't add dead
time to the wires. He responded that the signal is moving much faster and you
can neglect the time that signals need to pass the wires.
Now I would like to calculate the speed of the signal (is this the wave
propagation speed?) for some very simple settings:

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assume we have a copper wire

the wire is a perfect cylinder with diameter of 1mm

the current is 2A

the voltage is 12V

Can you help me with this? Do you need something else to calculate the speed?

Notes: I found the wikipedia article Wave propagation speed and some
questions on physics.stackexchange.com, but the questions and answers were
either too complicated or didn't directly give numbers (like that one)
A little side question: When I think about the electric signal, I imagine some
elastic balls. When there is a signal at one end, you push the ball. It gets
compressed and expands later, which compresses the next ball a bit and it
expands, ... This way, the last ball gets moved and the signal arrives at the end.
Do I have to get another thinking-model for simple circuits or will I be able to
understand simple circuits with this model in mind?

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To calculate the propagation speed, you need to specify the return current path
in addition to the "forward" path. The reason is that the electromagnetic fields
that determine the propagation characteristics fill the space between the two
conductors. [If you try to calculate the inductance of a single wire, you get an
infinite result.]
The filler material between the conductors matters too: its electric
polarizability (quantified by the dielectric constant

, which is typically 2-5 times the value for free space 0) slows down the signal speed.
Typically the filler is magnetically neutral, so its susceptibility
is the same as for free space.
For a coaxial conductor, the wave speed formula ends up being very simple:

v=1
For a relative dielectric constant (/0
) of 3, one calculates a velocity of 58% of the speed of light.
Finally, your elastic ball analogy is good to zeroth order, but I don't think you can use it to
think about propagation velocity. There are two independent (but coupled) fields (electric
and magnetic) at play here.

UPDATE: It turns out that the geometry of the conductors doesn't matter much; the main
determinant of the propagation velocity is the filler material properties. For parallel
conductors of arbitrary (but constant) cross-section, the propagation velocity is:

v=crr
Here the relative permeability of the filler r=/0
(typically 2-5) and relative magnetic susceptibility r=/0 (usually 1), while c is lightspeed. So the formula for the coaxial geometry turns out to be quite general (note

c=1/00

).
As Jaime mentions in the comments below, there will be some additional "internal"
inductance due to the magnetic fields within the conductors which will reduce the velocity;
that bit is geometry-dependent.