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The original was posted on /r/electricians by /u/_Stompa on 2024-01-12 19:47:36+00:00.

I was learning about circuit breakers and the example I was looking at was if a fan is connected to a 20a circuit breaker through 20a receptacle and 12 gauge wire, but the fan is old and bound up with a bunch dirt and has more resistance to turn, this will draw more current, and in the example it gets up to 21 amps and the breaker stays on because it takes a certain amount of time for the bimetallic strip in the breaker to get hot enough to trip, my question is why wouldn’t the breaker trip magnetically if there’s 21 amps going through it?