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Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

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

#31

Post by throwway120385 »

akira2501 wrote: post #28
throwway120385 wrote: post #13

Because he didn't know anything about electrons, and the experiment he did involving rubbing amber and glass rods on fur and silk cloth only showed that something was transferred between the two materials, and that when the material containing the substance was brought near to the other material containing the other substance, the property conferred by the substances appeared to negate. If you read Teaching Introduct…

It really seems like had a rationale: "We suppose as aforesaid, That Electrical Fire is a common Element, of which every one of the three Persons abovementioned has his equal Share before any Operation is begun with the Tube. A who stands on Wax, and rubs the Tube, collects the Electrical Fire from himself into the Glass; and his Communication with the common Stock being cut off by the Wax, his Body is not again imme…

But his choice of "positive" or "negative" are entirely a convention of how he wanted to think about things. There's nothing special about the sign other than it made it easier for him to reason about what was happening.

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

#32

Post by pdonis »

throwway120385 wrote: post #13

Because he didn't know anything about electrons, and the experiment he did involving rubbing amber and glass rods on fur and silk cloth only showed that something was transferred between the two materials, and that when the material containing the substance was brought near to the other material containing the other substance, the property conferred by the substances appeared to negate. If you read Teaching Introduct…

> there is no way of knowing the direction of the charge

But there is--otherwise we wouldn't know that Franklin got it backwards. He thought the charge carriers were going one way, and chose the convention he did because he thought it matched the way the charge carriers were going, but it turns out they were going the other way. The signs of the charges are a convention--and the fact that we still use Franklin's convention and it works just fine attests to that--but the direction the charge carriers move is not.

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

#33

Post by g15jv2dp »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #24
CapitalistCartr wrote: post #6

A big part of this is we measure what's important to us. As an electrician, what's important is which wire is full of angry pixies. They're technical direction of travel is far less important to my job (and my safety). When doing electronics, the direction of travel becomes quite important. So there's a different point of view.

Anytime electrochemistry is involved it's important. But regular electronics not very much. I think positive and negative mostly trips up people trying to use what they think is happening to explain theory. When it's not that useful most of the time. What I could never keep straight is anode and cathode.

Cats are more intelligent than donkeys (âne in French). Cathode is positive, anode is negative. That's how I (and probably all French students) learned it.

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

#34

Post by [deleted] »

throwway120385 wrote: post #13

Because he didn't know anything about electrons, and the experiment he did involving rubbing amber and glass rods on fur and silk cloth only showed that something was transferred between the two materials, and that when the material containing the substance was brought near to the other material containing the other substance, the property conferred by the substances appeared to negate. If you read Teaching Introduct…

[deleted]

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

#35

Post by bmacho »

crazygringo wrote: post #21
bmacho wrote: post #7

> that makes electrons negative, and apparently nobody knows why When there is a symmetry, there are choices, all the time in math, and sometime in physics too. Also I don't like calling electrons negative, they are not. Maybe you can say that their charge is -1, when you model charge with the additive structure of real numbers / integers, and you choose the protons charge to correspond to 1. Modeling charge with the…

> So you shouldn't say "electron is negative". That's weird, confusing, misleading, and trolling. Huh? By the convention you describe (and we all share), electrons have negative charge, since -1 is negative. When speaking in the shared and understood context of charge, you shorten that to saying electrons are negative. Nothing weird, confusing, or misleading, and certainly not trolling. I'm baffled where you get that…

I mean I quoted baez, but I quote it again:

> makes electrons negative

It is not true, and trolling.

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

#36

Post by wycy »

akira2501 wrote: post #28
throwway120385 wrote: post #13

Because he didn't know anything about electrons, and the experiment he did involving rubbing amber and glass rods on fur and silk cloth only showed that something was transferred between the two materials, and that when the material containing the substance was brought near to the other material containing the other substance, the property conferred by the substances appeared to negate. If you read Teaching Introduct…

It really seems like had a rationale: "We suppose as aforesaid, That Electrical Fire is a common Element, of which every one of the three Persons abovementioned has his equal Share before any Operation is begun with the Tube. A who stands on Wax, and rubs the Tube, collects the Electrical Fire from himself into the Glass; and his Communication with the common Stock being cut off by the Wax, his Body is not again imme…

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.

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

#37

Post by jstanley »

wycy wrote: post #36
akira2501 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really seems like had a rationale: "We suppose as aforesaid, That Electrical Fire is a common Element, of which every one of the three Persons abovementioned has his equal Share before any Operation is begun with the Tube. A who stands on Wax, and rubs the Tube, collects the Electrical Fire from himself into the Glass; and his Communication with the common Stock being cut off by the Wax, his Body is not again imme…

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.

> even laypeople understand it more scientifically

Laypeople use more scientific-sounding words, sure, but what more scientific way is there to understand something than to have discovered it yourself through experiment?

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

#38

Post by detourdog »

wycy wrote: post #36
akira2501 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really seems like had a rationale: "We suppose as aforesaid, That Electrical Fire is a common Element, of which every one of the three Persons abovementioned has his equal Share before any Operation is begun with the Tube. A who stands on Wax, and rubs the Tube, collects the Electrical Fire from himself into the Glass; and his Communication with the common Stock being cut off by the Wax, his Body is not again imme…

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.

I often prefer the original language of discovery. My favorite is the term accumulator compared to battery.

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

#39

Post by boring-alterego »

Fun fact when in 2 year school for electronics engineering technology we learned the current flow with the electrons, and in my 4 year electrical engineering school I learned it by following electron holes.

You'll find basic electrical circuits books sometimes have an electron flow edition.

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

#40

Post by gavindean90 »

xdavidliu wrote: post #27
NegativeLatency wrote: post #3

It was only relatively recently we figured started to understand some sort of model of what the inside of the atom is: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plum_pudding_model

how is this recent? This was like 1900.

That’s more than a hundred years after Franklin.
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