[Amps] Hole Flow

[Mike Waters]

Hi Jim,

On Sat, Aug 31, 2013 at 8:48 PM, Jim Garland <4cx250b at miamioh.edu> wrote:

> This thread reminds me of the never ending debate about whether lightning
> jumps from the cloud to the ground, or from the ground to the cloud!  (I
> have heard it can go either way, depending on the type of cloud.)
>

Indeed. For a long time, I thought it was *always* ground-to-cloud. But
that's apparently not the case.
http://images.intellicast.com/WxImages/Lightning/usa.jpg shows yellow as
negative strikes, and red as positive strikes. One is much more common.


>   In my case, I like the idea of thinking of current flowing from positive
> to negative, even though electrons in a vacuum tube go the other way.
> Otherwise, when  I have a flashover in my HV power supply, I'd have to
> think of the arc jumping from the chassis up to the positive voltage, and
> that
> just seems strange!
>

I can appreciate that. But to me, anything but negative-to-positive (a
surplus of electrons attracted to positive objects with electrons stripped)
will probably always seem strange.

I just got a private e-mail stating  "The fact that electrons flow from
hole to hole has actually never been in contention.  (it is the only
explanation of vacuum tube operation)". I do believe that a vacuum is not
completely empty space, but I still don't understand that. Even if we have
a perfect vacuum in a triode (or whatever), where do "holes" fit in?

Maybe I've been overlooking some important things all along. Regardless, I
am enjoying this debate. :-)

I do know that when I have a HV corona-discharge negative ion generator (a
field emission electron generator) operating in a room, and I increase the
humidity, I can then detect the negative charge in the air at a
significantly greater distance. I have a theory as to why this is true, but
that's another story for another place.

73, Mike
www.w0btu.com