I raised my head above the parapet in http://forum.allaboutcircuits.com/showthread.php?t=66245 but was told I was off topic so I thought I'd reply to my fellow posters here instead.
OK gentlemen - I'll stick my head back in the lion's mouth.
Current flows? - we ALL know (right?) that current is a measure of the FLOW of charge (coulombs/sec). No-one would say (would they?) that "flow of charge flows". If they did - wouldn't that be confusing? So why is it so common to see "current flows"? Maybe it's because at best we're lazy and at worst it's because we don't understand what's actually going on. If WE don't understand HOW can we possibly teach? Just because "everyone" says something, doesn't mean it's correct. Giving "youngsters" a totally illogical, inconsistent and confusing premise can't be right can it?
Your comments:
(BTW - having skimmed the article you attached it appears to be about a DIFFERENT misconception - NOT what I'm discussing here).
Look - I'm absolutely NO expert in electronics - you guys have probably forgotten more than I know about electronics. What I DO know is when I first read a decent explanation of this (and others) - "things" started to slot into place and make MUCH more sense to me. Who knows - it may work for someone else.
OK gentlemen - I'll stick my head back in the lion's mouth.
Current flows? - we ALL know (right?) that current is a measure of the FLOW of charge (coulombs/sec). No-one would say (would they?) that "flow of charge flows". If they did - wouldn't that be confusing? So why is it so common to see "current flows"? Maybe it's because at best we're lazy and at worst it's because we don't understand what's actually going on. If WE don't understand HOW can we possibly teach? Just because "everyone" says something, doesn't mean it's correct. Giving "youngsters" a totally illogical, inconsistent and confusing premise can't be right can it?
Your comments:
I'm not suggesting we do say charge flow. But why do we need the word FLOW in your sentence above - we can talk about current in terms of magnitude and direction perfectly adequately without using the word FLOW. Wouldn't your sentence be just as easy to read AND at the same time more correct and logical if we said: "current is flow of charge, however we always talk about direction of current, not charge flow"current is flow of charge, however we always talk about direction of current flow, not charge flow
REALLY? ... perhaps you've proved my point for me.I have no idea what you are trying to say.
Done my best.Care to elaborate?
Is it purism to try to get and TEACH things right? If we commonly said things in our schools like "How fast is speed?" or "How far away is that distance" would it not be confusing and would it be purism to correct it?The purists want to alert us to a great error in our thinking .....
(BTW - having skimmed the article you attached it appears to be about a DIFFERENT misconception - NOT what I'm discussing here).
Look - I'm absolutely NO expert in electronics - you guys have probably forgotten more than I know about electronics. What I DO know is when I first read a decent explanation of this (and others) - "things" started to slot into place and make MUCH more sense to me. Who knows - it may work for someone else.