Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons? • Hacker News Board

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#181

Post by croes » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 7:51 PM UTC

juliushuijnk wrote: post #177

adrian_b wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not know if this is a joke about shadows that I did not get, or just a typo, but numbers exist in the world. The world is composed of things. The things are grouped in sets. Numbers are equivalence classes of sets. The set of the medium-sized planets of the Solar System is equivalent in number with the set of the big planets of the Solar System and also equivalent in number with the set of the big satellites of…

> The things are grouped in sets. By who?

Our current universe

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#182

Post by labster » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 8:22 PM UTC

crote wrote: post #84

lazide wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Was ‘Blue’ invented or discovered? Fundamentally, it’s the same type of problem - and really more of a philosophical thing.

The interesting part is that perception is shaped by language. The Ancient Greeks did not have a word for blue, which led to things like the sky being described as "wine-colored" or "bronze". Similarly, the English "blue" is split into two in Russian: light blue (голубой – goluboy) and deep/dark blue (синий – siniy), a speaker has to choose between them when describing something. The wavelengths may have always exist…

In English, speakers are forced to make the same light/dark distinction between pink/red and orange/brown as well. I don’t think most native speakers of English think of orange as the same as light brown.

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#183

Post by lazide » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 8:43 PM UTC

labster wrote: post #182

crote wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The interesting part is that perception is shaped by language. The Ancient Greeks did not have a word for blue, which led to things like the sky being described as "wine-colored" or "bronze". Similarly, the English "blue" is split into two in Russian: light blue (голубой – goluboy) and deep/dark blue (синий – siniy), a speaker has to choose between them when describing something. The wavelengths may have always exist…

In English, speakers are forced to make the same light/dark distinction between pink/red and orange/brown as well. I don’t think most native speakers of English think of orange as the same as light brown.

Ah hah! This explains something.

I’ve literally had an argument with someone where they insisted burnt umber was not orange or orange like.

Which, uh - maybe? But c’mon. It’s totally somewhat Orange!

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#184

Post by ViktorRay » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 8:45 PM UTC

hollerith wrote: post #111

ViktorRay wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well why wouldn’t it? The mathematical constants could remain the same as in the current theories. Both the constant G for gravitation and g for the acceleration for gravity on earth. I am not a physicist so I may be getting something wrong

Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (published 1687) contains a mathematical (geometric actually) proof that the gravitational attraction between the Earth an a man standing on the surface of the Earth is the same as it would be if all of the mass of the Earth were at its center. There's another proof that if the man is standing at the bottom of a one-mile hole, and the Earth is assumed to be a perf…

Hey thank you for your reply. I learned several interesting examples from your first paragraph in the comment.

I do think your last sentence here was unnecessary though:

”That is that kind of thing I mean: proofs and calculations, not "why wouldn't it?"”

When I said “why wouldn’t it” I was asking out of genuine curiosity. There really wasn’t any need to criticize that part. It came off as maybe more hostile than I think you intended.

Again I most certainly appreciate you taking the time to type up the rest of your comment though because I did learn quite a bit from those examples you posted so I am indeed sincerely grateful for that.

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#185

Post by teraflop » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 8:49 PM UTC

teraflop wrote: post #63

wycy wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s really strange reading the words of such an intelligent person beginning to understand something back then that is so fundamental today that even laypeople understand it more scientifically. Really weird, but really cool to get a peek back into a scientific mind in the 1700s.

Along similar lines, I recently learned about an early nuclear physics textbook written by George Gamow. The first edition came out in 1931, and the preface of the second edition in 1937 describes how the book had to be completely written because the state of knowledge had changed so radically in those few years -- most notably, by the discovery of the neutron and of induced radioactivity. It's fun to think about a t…

D'oh -- I meant to say "the book had to be completely rewritten" but it's too late to edit my comment.

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#186

Post by Joker_vD » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 8:50 PM UTC

AnotherGoodName wrote: post #66

It wouldn’t surprise me if at some point in the future we realise mass shields us from a gravitational field that pushes everything in all directions at once as opposed to our current thinking that mass emits a field that pulls us towards it. Eg. imagine the earth below you shielding you from a force that otherwise pushes all mass in all directions constantly. You’re now more shielded from the push in the direction o…

> It wouldn’t surprise me if at some point in the future we realise mass shields us from a gravitational field that pushes everything in all directions at once as opposed to our current thinking that mass emits a field that pulls us towards it.

It would definitely surprise me since I know that this theory — since it's such an obvious hypothesis — has been proposed multiple times since Newton's own (it's now colloquially called "Le Sage's theory of gravitation" [0], but it had many other proponents including Kelvin, H. Lorentz and Thomson) and it has always failed to accomodate the equivalence of graviational and inertional masses: after all, the gravity is not proportional to the cross-section of the bodies, and graviational shielding does not exist — experiments done by Eötvös were quite decisive in that regard.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Sage%27s_theory_of_gravitat...

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#187

Post by adrian_b » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 10:03 PM UTC

juliushuijnk wrote: post #177

adrian_b wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not know if this is a joke about shadows that I did not get, or just a typo, but numbers exist in the world. The world is composed of things. The things are grouped in sets. Numbers are equivalence classes of sets. The set of the medium-sized planets of the Solar System is equivalent in number with the set of the big planets of the Solar System and also equivalent in number with the set of the big satellites of…

> The things are grouped in sets. By who?

Even before the appearance of life, the things group in sets spontaneously, due to the interplay between attractive and repulsive forces and the positive feedbacks that appear in certain conditions.

The world is not made of a homogeneous substance, but there are various kinds of groupings at various levels, nucleons and electrons group in atoms, atoms group in molecules, molecules group in pebbles, stars group in galaxies and so on.

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#188

Post by spaceywilly » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 10:14 PM UTC

tedk-42 wrote: post #30

sobellian wrote: post #20

Charge carriers aren't always electrons anyway, so you're restricting yourself by thinking of current as electrons moving. Even in the usual case where electrons are the charge carrier, it is only the small net movement of zillions of electrons back and forth which produces a current. So in any case current is a macrostate and electron movement is a microstate, and sign convention won't change that.

Exactly this! Even the use of 'flow' is misleading. It's barely trickling through the wire...

Exactly, I see many questions that start with “If the electrons are flowing from the negative terminal…”

The movement of electrons is inconsequential. It’s the magnetic fields between electrons that provide the power in an electric circuit. These fields actually don’t even travel through the wires! They move around the space outside the wires. Ask anyone who has routed a differential signal pair :)

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#189

Post by wongarsu » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 10:21 PM UTC

shepherdjerred wrote: post #173

SoftTalker wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The commonplace example of this would be a battery, correct? You can touch + or - separately and feel nothing.

I thought that was safe because the voltage/current isn't enough to go through skin or something like that.

For AA batteries that's true. But licking a 9V battery gives you a notable shock. Any wet skin should work to some degree at 9V, but the tongue is very sensitive so it brings the most dramatic effect.

Re: Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#190

Post by afiori » Sat, Jun 22, 2024, 10:22 PM UTC

juliushuijnk wrote: post #177

adrian_b wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do not know if this is a joke about shadows that I did not get, or just a typo, but numbers exist in the world. The world is composed of things. The things are grouped in sets. Numbers are equivalence classes of sets. The set of the medium-sized planets of the Solar System is equivalent in number with the set of the big planets of the Solar System and also equivalent in number with the set of the big satellites of…

> The things are grouped in sets. By who?

Us?

If one take the position tha minds are not part of the "real world" then you end up defining "reality" by some random model.

It is just as absurd as saying that the only thing that exists is my own perception and you are "just" a ghost my mind is "thinking into existence".

It sounds less crazy only because we are used to reductionism being generally more useful, but what is the usefullness of concepts like reality and existence when defined to mean that we and our minds (the only thing we perceive) are not "real" or do not really "exist"?