Anyone care to argue that if Ben Franklin had guessed the other way about
which substance had the negative charge (which meant we would have had
an electron defined as holding a positive charge), that both current "flow" and
electron movement would have been in the same direction and we wouldn't
be having this discussion?
In solid state semiconductor electronics, you could argue that
positive-to-negative
current flow is following the flow of the holes, rather than the electrons. But
in
vacuum tubes, I don't see holes as meaningful. Yes, you can have some movement
of positive ions there somewhere, but that's not what's driving the core Edison
Effect.
73,
Cathy
N5WVR
--------------------------------------------
On Sat, 11/19/16, Jerry O. Stern <jsternmd@att.net> wrote:
Subject: Re: [Amps] "Conventional" current flow
To: "'Jim Garland'" <4cx250b@miamioh.edu>, "'Mike Waters'"
<mikewate@gmail.com>, amps@contesting.com
Date: Saturday, November 19, 2016, 3:38 PM
Hi Jim
Great explanation as always. So if "flow" is a mathematical construct, in
the early days of modern electricity why did the great fathers arbitrarily
pick current flow opposite of electron movement? Couldn't they
have reversed it and maintained the concept at least wrt electrons while
maintaining the same mathematical construct of ignoring the sign of the
charges? It just seems like an unnecessary non-intuitive notation was
introduced to throw off the non-physicist.
73 Jerry
NY2KW (ex-K1JOS)
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