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Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

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Why does current flow the opposite way from the electrons?

#1
After fighting through a bunch of unhelpful answers, one gets to the bottom of things: Benjamin Franklin chose a convention that makes electrons negative, and apparently nobody knows why.

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?

#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.

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

#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 additive structure of real numbers / integers is very reasonable. (You could use red and blue numbers, but that's not a widely used structure.)

So you shouldn't say "electron is negative". That's weird, confusing, misleading, and trolling.

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

#9

Could be worse. They could have chosen any term implying opposite. We could have had left and right handed charges. Although I suppose we essentially did that when naming the quarks.

The worst part is that up and down are not really opposites. Down is up on the other side of the world.

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

#10
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…

Red and blue integers: there is red 1, red 2, ... 0, blue 1, blue 2, ... . Addition and subtraction as you expect. There is no ordering, also no multiplicative structure. There are 2 isomorphism into the additive structure of the integers. (Red and blue reals are defined similarly.)

I find this structure to model charge better. If not for else, at least it prevents you to ask silly questions about charge.

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