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Not if I lift up the wire
Current is defined as the flow of positive charge. The fact that electrons, which are negatively charged, actually flow the opposite direction is irrelevant. The diagrams are still correct per the definition of current.
Current is defined as the flow of positive charge.
No.
electric current, any movement of electric charge carriers, such as subatomic charged particles (e.g., electrons having negative charge, protons having positive charge), ions (atoms that have lost or gained one or more electrons), or holes (electron deficiencies that may be thought of as positive particles).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_current
The conventional direction of current, also known as conventional current,[10][11] is arbitrarily defined as the direction in which positive charges flow.
I was addressing a different part of your comment. See quote.
Currents aren’t drawn incorrectly. Electrons do move backwards, but since their electric charge is negative, the current goes the correct way.
So, it doesn’t actually change anything; everything still works the same.
But textbooks need to be thrown away and remade, every circuit diagram, every electrical engineering plan, decades of research and research papers have to be combed and corrected, or accept that they’re wrong.
While technically possible, it would create colossal risk and unending chaos and It’s environmentally unsound, for something that doesn’t change anything in the end.
Lazy is not checking your mail.
Refusing to turn reality on its head for a null change in the end is something else entirely.
Refusing to turn reality on its head for a null change in the end is something else entirely.
I do agree with you, just want to give voice to the other side of this. Don’t underestimate just how much of a barrier this confusion is in teaching. It’s confusing. Students who are new to electricity almost universally hate this, and in some cases it can cause misunderstanding, miscommunications, etc. There is a genuine cost to this mislabeling, and there would have been effectively no cost if electrons’ charge was considered positive instead of negative.
As I said, I do agree that in practice, with all the existing knowledge, writings and technologies that all agree that electrons are negative, it would be a global disaster if the labeling was switched. There’s no question about it. But I kind of disagree about “null change”, it’s true that it wouldn’t change what we can create or (almost) any of our equations, but it absolutely would make it easier to teach it to future generations.
My electronics teacher weathered it pretty well.
This is a basic circuit. These are how the electric and magnetic fields work. Oh and Franklin fucked up a long time ago, made a guess, and he guessed wrong. So, realistically, electrons flow from negative to positive, and the holes they leave behind flow from positive to negative. (he had already covered PN junctions so it scanned) It doesn’t change the math or anything, just know that electron flow is negative to positive and that’s the last you’ll hear of it. And we all said that’s dumb. And now, in my life, this is like the 5rd time I’ve talked about it since I learned it in 1992.
They don’t have to remake the textbooks in some cases - I’ve seen electronics (college) textbooks that were printed in 2 different versions for Electron Flow and Hole Flow.
Eh, i’ve struggled with this for years but eventually found my peace.
You see, there’s two types of electric current: Electrons moving through a wire, and protons moving through water (the second one is also called a pH gradient, it happens e.g. in cell membranes of chloroplasts, fascinating stuff, check it out).
Basically plants do photosynthesis, which is extremely similar to what solar panels do. They generate an electric current, and in that current, positive charges move, so the “direction of current flow” is the correct one.
I have come to accept that the current inside living beings is more important than the current in all the machinery, because without life there would be no machinery, so life deserves to get the “correct” current.
This is such a good view of it that it also makes the professors I had that make the joke about it going backwards seem silly.
A lot of the old experiments on electricity were done with like paper dipped in salt water so of course physicists would lean towards defining it this way.
I prefer a version of that meme with She-Ra in the photo
It’s not that hard. this is a skill issue, OP.
Please do not vote or have children.You are a dipshit
*toxic dipshit.
Most circuit diagrams do not draw current flowing in any direction at all. It’s just labeled + and -. I don’t see anything wrong with this.
Logically the switch comes before the bulb.
Current propagates at the speed of light in the conductor. It really doesn’t matter which side the switch is on at human timescales
The convention puts them on the positive side; people who understand the convention is [mostly] wrong put it on the negative side, but it doesn’t matter
deleted by creator
feels like this should be a skeletor quote!
While we’re at it, is a compass needle’s North pole actually a South so that it points North? Or is the Earth’s North pole actually South so that the needle’s North pole points to it?
(I know that I could look this up, I just want to confuse people.)
The needle used to be called the north seeking needle. It is magnetically south
We decided on North long before we discovered magnetism. But the magnet poles of the earth flip from time to time so ehhh.
But that’s by design, while this is a convention problem
OMG-O-S-H every circuit designed with conventional current just exploded because of your revelation here.
/s
My friend, this is the same branch of science that got us to space with calculations assuming spherical cows.
so like, on my old car stereo system, the positive was actually coming through the frame of the car? scrape a little spot under the bolt of a seat?
Red means on and green means off, I hate electricity.
Black means off?? What’s up with green?
In a power plant when looking at your system (various breakers, busses, transformers ect) red is closed (on) and green is open (off). At least in my power plant in the US.
So…
Green : safe to touch
Red : lethal
That’s the way you’re supposed to think about it yep.
There are situations where the charge carrier is positive (e.g. a positive ion flowing in a solution)
Couldn’t you fix this by also defining electrons as positive? Imo the physicists and electrical engineers should fight it out.
No I need cations to be positive because the t in the word looks like a little plus sign so that’s an easy way to remember which is cathode/anode or cation/anion.
This was very helpful on tests.
All words are just made up.
The physicists are absolutely right. However, I reject their reality and substitute my own
That sounds like the electrical engineers I know
