[Amps] Zener Screen Regulators

[Carl]

I can easily swing either way so the arguments are meaningless and 
unimportant in real life.
The old saying was "There are 3 ways to do something: the right way, the 
wrong way, and the Navy way."  With 28 years in the USN, mostly Reserves, I 
just go with the flow!

Carl
KM1H


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Manfred Mornhinweg" <manfred at ludens.cl>
To: <amps at contesting.com>
Sent: Sunday, August 05, 2012 10:43 AM
Subject: Re: [Amps] Zener Screen Regulators


> In this particular matter about the true direction of current flow, I 
> agree with Bill, for a change... While it is understandable that back in 
> the dark ages it was defined the wrong way, because people simply didn't 
> know a lot about electricity, it's stupid that this mistake is still being 
> taught.
>
> In an abstract way, I have no trouble at all to imagine current as a flow 
> of charges, and I'm comfortable with analyzing circuits using either 
> "conventional" or true sense of current flow. But I see no point in using 
> the "conventional" sense. Specially when it comes pretty physical, almost 
> mechanical things, like the operation principles of vacuum tubes.
>
> In semiconductors it's easy to work with electrons and "holes" as 
> equivalent but opposite charge carriers, but the truth (according to 
> present day knowledge of physics!) is that ONLY the electrons actually 
> move around any charges. A hole moving is nothing else than an electron 
> moving in the opposite direction. And in tubes there are no such "holes", 
> and any electronics teacher would have a pretty hard time teaching their 
> internal operation based on conventional flow sense of current. When it 
> comes to cathode ray tubes, we are at the summit of stupidity if we try to 
> explain them with current flow from positive to negative!
>
> Years ago I started writing a book about electronics, in a practical way. 
> I never quite finished it. But in that book I mention "conventional" flow 
> sense of current only as a historic curiosity and a proof of Murphy's Laws 
> when guessing something without knowing it! All explanations how things 
> work are based on actual flow of electrons, even in P-type semiconductors.
>
> After all, this is electronics, not holonics nor positronics.
>
> Manfred
>
>
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> http://ludens.cl
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