Do ions still "conduct electricity" if a physical connection made by aqueous electrolytes between the anode and the cathode is nonexistent?
If a cathode (negative pole) is placed alone in an ionic solution (without any anode in the solution), it will attract cations from the solution, and discharge maybe one or two or one thousand of these cations. This will last maybe 1 nanosecond, and then it will stop. The reason is that this number of atoms is extremely small, so small that the neutral atoms which are deposited on the cathode cannot be seen or weighed. And then the cathodic discharge will stop, because the whole solution has lost positive charges (cations), but has not lost any negative charges (anions). As a consequence, the whole solution becomes negatively charged. This negative charge increases with the time and prevents the cathode from bringing new electrons necessary for discharging further cations. The electrolysis will stop. The electrode is said to be &quot;polarized&quot;.