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Re: [Amps] "Conventional" current flow

To: Jim Garland <4cx250b@miamioh.edu>
Subject: Re: [Amps] "Conventional" current flow
From: Michael Clarson <wv2zow@gmail.com>
Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 15:02:45 -0500
List-post: <amps@contesting.com">mailto:amps@contesting.com>
Jim and Bill: I see wind was mentioned. When we say North Wind, that means
the wind is coming from the North, but my weather vane points to the south.
The wind called the north wind blows to the south. Kind of the same thing
as current flow, isn't it? --Mike, WV2ZOW

On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 10:41 PM, Jim Garland <4cx250b@miamioh.edu> wrote:

> Hey Bill, Why're you picking on me? I'm just the messenger, here! Really,
> I'm not making this stuff up. What I've said is what the entire scientific
> community believes, and also virtually every electrical engineer who didn't
> cheat on his college exams. Of course, you're entitled to believe whatever
> you want, but you're definitely in the minority camp.
>
> On the other hand, what you said is mostly correct, so maybe we're really
> not that far apart. Generally speaking, current, whether it's wind, or
> water
> spouting from a hose, is always a flow of some substance, whether it be
> electrons, water molecules, air molecules, protons from the solar wind, or
> whatever. But that's a definition made up by humans. Movement is not a real
> substance, and neither is electric current. Current is an abstraction. Like
> I said earlier, you can't weigh it on a scale, or hold it your hand, like
> you can with real particles.
>
> To be technically correct, an electric current is a description of the
> magnetic field produced by the movement of charged particles. (One of James
> Clerk Maxwell's famous four equations explains this relationship.) For
> example, if you measure the plate current flowing from your HV power supply
> through a copper wire into the plate cap of your 3-500Z linear amp, your
> plate current meter is actually measuring the magnetic field caused by the
> charges moving in the copper wire. And this is done without ever touching
> the wire. Also, the copper wire itself is electrically neutral, which means
> that inside it there's no excess of one kind of charge over the other.
> Furthermore, you can't tell from the plate current measurement whether the
> charges in the wire are positive charges moving up the wire, or negative
> charges moving down the wire. That's why current is such a useful concept:
> it doesn't require any knowledge of the sign of the charges creating it,
> which means that it's just as valid a concept when you're dealing with PNP
> junctions, protons from a particle accelerator, electrons emitted from a
> vacuum tube cathode, or whatever.
>
> 73,
> Jim W8ZR
>
> > -----Original Message-----
> > Subject: Re: [Amps] "Conventional" current flow
> >
> > Jim's post, reprinted in full below, is incomprehensible nonsense.
> > Everyone but Jim knows what "current" is: The liquid-like movement of
> particles such as
> > water molecules, air molecules or electrons.
> > For the life of me I do not understand why some people want to make
> things
> more complex
> > and obscure than they are. Science has always been the search for truth
> except, apparently,
> > when it comes to electricity.
> > Ben Franklin made a mistake and we are still paying for it.
> >
> > Time to wise up, folks!
> >
> > 73, Bill W6WRT
>
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