Correct. Now go look in the E-book, for instance,

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-2/voltage-current-resistance-relate/

or look at any of the posts (including the TS) that want to use electron current (which is what the TS is trying to do whether he recognizes it or not) and they will maintain that the current Io, according to the electron current convention, is +9 mA because electron current is in the "true" direction that charge flows. But that is because they can't distinguish between the flow of charge carries and the flow of charge carried by those charge carriers.

In the circuits on that E-book page, the currents should be I = -4 A and -9 A, respectively, because the electrons are carrying a current of -4 coulombs (and -9 coulombs) in that direction every second. So, like I've been saying for decades, the people that insist on using electron current don't ever (almost universally ever) do it correctly and consistently. As a result, they end up having to throw around magical mystery minus signs right and left.

- " But that is because they can't distinguish between the flow of charge carries and the flow of charge carried by those charge carriers. "

Am I to understand that ELECTRONS can and do " carry " positive and/or negative charges with them to wherever they go either one type of charge at a time or whatever, through a wire; from all that. I must be mistaken.

 

Correct. Now go look in the E-book, for instance,

http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/direct-current/chpt-2/voltage-current-resistance-relate/

or look at any of the posts (including the TS) that want to use electron current (which is what the TS is trying to do whether he recognizes it or not) and they will maintain that the current Io, according to the electron current convention, is +9 mA because electron current is in the "true" direction that charge flows. But that is because they can't distinguish between the flow of charge carries and the flow of charge carried by those charge carriers.

In the circuits on that E-book page, the currents should be I = -4 A and -9 A, respectively, because the electrons are carrying a current of -4 coulombs (and -9 coulombs) in that direction every second. So, like I've been saying for decades, the people that insist on using electron current don't ever (almost universally ever) do it correctly and consistently. As a result, they end up having to throw around magical mystery minus signs right and left.

Hi,

I'll have to take a look at that and see if i can make any sense out of it. Sometime today hopefully.

LATER:
Took a quick look. Yes, that is a method that is sometime used too. The electron current is considered to be the reference current.
We might note however that the derivation of voltages across elements changes polarity too then. Instead of current entering the top of an element makes the top positive, the rule then becomes the current entering the top of an element makes the top negative.
In the case of that battery and light bulb, the current is entering the bottom so using the second rule the bottom is negative.
That is what we have to do if we want to call the electron flow current positive.

 

Is there a situation where you can have positive charge flow, without negative charge flow?

YES, some mediums.

Isn't positive charge flow just a mirror or reflection (apparent result) of negative charge flow?

SOMETIMES. Depends how you look at it. Sometimes positive charge seems to flow in the same direction as negative charge flow.
Sometimes one or the other moves, but not both.

Shouldn't the physical dynamic have priority in physics?

In physics yes, but not necessarily in circuit analysis because the simplest explanation is often used for theory. There has been much though on this in the past. One of the results is that positive charge is a "quasiparticle", which is something that is called a particle because the measured effect looks like there is a new particle there when really it is the conglomeration of many other real particles surrounding it that actually cause the effect. It's simpler to call it a new particle then to try to take into account the action of billions of real particles. Like a hole in the ground, it's easier to call it a hole in the ground then to describe it in terms of all the particles of dirt that have been removed.

The word flow implies physical movement, not field balance.

Not sure what you are getting at there.

Current and electricity should be define as electron flow. Because the physical electron movement causes both charge results.

As mentioned, sometimes it is more difficult to figure out what is going on when we have to take into account billions of particles so instead we look at the overall effect then make up a particle that, if it really did exist, would cause the exact same behavior. We only have to keep track of one 'quasi' particle then. Is this right to do? In many areas of science it works wonders so it's hard to reject.
There has been a lot of thought in the past as to what is considered real and what is considered not real. From what i had read in the past, there seems to be arguments on both sides. The end results seems to be that the interpretation is application specific until we know more about what reality really is. For example, from what i had read at one time it was not sure if there were actually two or more types of real charges, and now i read that it has been proved that there is only one type of charge.

 

Hi,

I'll have to take a look at that and see if i can make any sense out of it. Sometime today hopefully.

LATER:
Took a quick look. Yes, that is a method that is sometime used too. The electron current is considered to be the reference current.
We might note however that the derivation of voltages across elements changes polarity too then. Instead of current entering the top of an element makes the top positive, the rule then becomes the current entering the top of an element makes the top negative.
In the case of that battery and light bulb, the current is entering the bottom so using the second rule the bottom is negative.
That is what we have to do if we want to call the electron flow current positive.

But if you want to call the electron flow current positive, then you CANNOT use the unit of amperes because amperes is the rate of the flow of CHARGE!

In addition, you need to change a whole slew of equations in order to make them consistent with the fact that voltage is defined in terms of charge and not electrons.

If you don't (which no one does) then you end up with a mish mash system that forces you to use magical mystery minus signs all over the place. For instance, replace the resistor with a capacitor and then ask how much charge is on the plate connected to the negative terminal. We know that it is negative since it has an excess of electrons. But if the current flowing into it is positive (per the electron flow current guys) then how is it that a positive current (remember, 1 ampere = 1 coulomb of charge per second) results in a negative charge building up? Answer, it can't -- unless you throw a magical mystery minus sign at it because that's the sign that you know the answer has to have.

 

But it's making my life a living hell! I have to deal with this phenomenon of " Electricity " on Day-to-Day basis so I can survive

Just exactly are you doing in your life that what your asking is so important? If you just adhere to the normal + and - polarities of electrical devices you will/should be good to go in anything in electronics. You are making this way to hard for your self. Every chip and other component in electronics that are polarity dependent are clearly marked, either on the component its self or in the data sheet. You can't see the movement at the "electron" level so stop driving yourself crazy and get on with building things, if that's what you want to do.

 

Reminds me of a cartoon I saw one with two winos sitting on a building stoop. One says to the other, "Quarks, leptons, neutrinos, and all those other things you can't see -- THAT's what led me to drink. But NOW I can SEE them!"

 

But if you want to call the electron flow current positive, then you CANNOT use the unit of amperes because amperes is the rate of the flow of CHARGE!

In addition, you need to change a whole slew of equations in order to make them consistent with the fact that voltage is defined in terms of charge and not electrons.

If you don't (which no one does) then you end up with a mish mash system that forces you to use magical mystery minus signs all over the place. For instance, replace the resistor with a capacitor and then ask how much charge is on the plate connected to the negative terminal. We know that it is negative since it has an excess of electrons. But if the current flowing into it is positive (per the electron flow current guys) then how is it that a positive current (remember, 1 ampere = 1 coulomb of charge per second) results in a negative charge building up? Answer, it can't -- unless you throw a magical mystery minus sign at it because that's the sign that you know the answer has to have.

Hi,

Well, that's not my fault

Yes a little strange. But you do see that after we change the sign of the voltage as the current enters a passive device it still gives us the correct voltage. I dont like to do that myself though, but i cant really say there is anything really wrong with that unless we have to consider both negative AND positive charges in the same problem.
I guess it matters more in a CRT tube, like an oscilloscope.
Also, sometimes Coulombs is used to indicate electron charge instead of minus Coulombs and of course that only works if there is no positive charges present too.
And to add to that, Amperes is defined on the basis of two wires and the force between them, which should not change when we dont talk about the direction of that force. Or do they included a direction now too, and would it matter?

In physics they often use electron flow i guess because it is more real and more modern (Franklin did not know about electrons) but in circuit analysis we much more often use positive charge flow, real or not, because it is simpler.

 

Just exactly are you doing in your life that what your asking is so important? If you just adhere to the normal + and - polarities of electrical devices you will/should be good to go in anything in electronics. You are making this way to hard for your self. Every chip and other component in electronics that are polarity dependent are clearly marked, either on the component its self or in the data sheet. You can't see the movement at the "electron" level so stop driving yourself crazy and get on with building things, if that's what you want to do.

Hi,

In circuit analysis we use the positive charge flow really, but in physics it may be important to consider the electron flow. Maybe this is more of a physics question.

 

Hi,

Well, that's not my fault

Yes a little strange. But you do see that after we change the sign of the voltage as the current enters a passive device it still gives us the correct voltage. I dont like to do that myself though, but i cant really say there is anything really wrong with that unless we have to consider both negative AND positive charges in the same problem.
I guess it matters more in a CRT tube, like an oscilloscope.
Also, sometimes Coulombs is used to indicate electron charge instead of minus Coulombs and of course that only works if there is no positive charges present too.
And to add to that, Amperes is defined on the basis of two wires and the force between them, which should not change when we dont talk about the direction of that force. Or do they included a direction now too, and would it matter?

In physics they often use electron flow i guess because it is more real and more modern (Franklin did not know about electrons) but in circuit analysis we much more often use positive charge flow, real or not, because it is simpler.

A coulomb has a very definite and universally accepted definition. A proton has a positive charge and an electron has a negative charge. As soon as you try to pretend that positive coulombs is used to indicate electron charge, they you MUST change ALL of the voltage polarities (or put a bunch of minus signs in many, but not all, equations associated with the subject) otherwise you have created a fundamentally inconsistent system!

 

By convention, a thing with negative charge repels another thing with negative charge.
Nobody knows what negative charge is.
By convention, a thing with negative charge is repelled from a negative electric field.
Nobody knows what an electric field is.
This is convention.
An electric field does not exist, in the sense of, say, a flower.
An electric field is a mathematical description of something we cannot see or smell but has a physical influence on our universe.
An electron is the same, and a negative charge also.
This is by the conventions of Mathematics and Physics.
By the conventions of Electronics, Current is NOT the flow of Electrons forced from a positive electric field to a negative electric field.
Current is the flow of 'NOT electrons' in the exact opposite direction.
This is because William Gilbert, Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray and C. F. du Fay, Benjamin Franklin, Luigi Galvani,
Alessandro Volta, Hans Christian Ørsted, André-Marie Ampère, Michael Faraday, and Georg Ohm, pretty much didn't know what they where doing at the time.

 

A coulomb has a very definite and universally accepted definition. A proton has a positive charge and an electron has a negative charge. As soon as you try to pretend that positive coulombs is used to indicate electron charge, they you MUST change ALL of the voltage polarities (or put a bunch of minus signs in many, but not all, equations associated with the subject) otherwise you have created a fundamentally inconsistent system!

Hi,

It's always a matter of convention, so what is the problem then?

 

OK, so in order to make the math come out right one needs say a -10 mW power plant because minus is generated and positive is dissipated, but we never speak of a -10 MW power plant.

I did work in the solar cell industry and we talked about Jsc (short circuit current/area) we always said it was positive. e.g. Jsc=100 mA/sqcm.

We never say we traveled 60 mph to a destination and -60 mph back.

Acceleration due to gravity is 9.8 m/s^2, but when using the number it's usually negative.

We get back $1.30 in change, not -$1.30.

Making and spending money isn't positive and negative, but when you do accounting (profit/loss) it is.

How old are you? Usually its single digits, unless your a baby then it's months. When I get lab work or the doctors, it;'s years and months on the chart.

The water is 10 feet deep, but I'll bet somewhere it's -10 ft.

Barometric pressure is always Normalized to sea level. The pressure reported isn't the actual pressure.

I still, sometimes hate the metric system. It's got good qualities, but the numbers are too big, A case size in mm, I can't visualize.
I can't use my foot to estimate. A foot is about the size of a real foot. An inch is about the distance from the thumb knuckle to the end of the thumb.

Shoe sizes depend on the region. A 9 men's and and a 9 women's are about 9 inches in the USA, but not exact.

A 2 x 4 is not 2" x 4".

There is PSIA and PSIG, but we use PSI. I hate the units kPa.

When you need the sign, you use it. We do stuff for convenience and it always depends on your frame of reference.

We didn't go back and re-write history, because we can't, because of Ben Franklin's "mistake".

We invented leap day and the leap second and deal with it.

The Black wire isn't always negative. Black is HOT in AC circuits. Red isn't positive either. In the world of thermocouples, red is negative.
In the Caribbean, one half of the island was euro's, the other in US dollars. In one half you drove on the left and the other the right.

Zero is sometimes not obtainable. Absolute zero, for instance.

 

?

 

Hi,

It's always a matter of convention, so what is the problem then?

How is voltage defined? There is only ONE definition that I am aware of. The voltage of point A relative to point B is, by definition, the work done by an electric field on a unit charge in moving from point A to B (hence it is a scalar field having units of energy (work) per unit charge, or joules/coulomb). Any other "definition" you come across had better be consistent with this one.

How is electric field defined? There is only ONE definition that I am aware of. It is the net force exerted per unit charge at a given location due to all other charges (hence it is a vector field having units of force per unit charge, or newtons/coulomb).

If you have an electric field that is pointing from left to right then a positive charge will experience a force (and, yes Virginia, positively charged particles that can move in the presence of an electric field DO exist) pushing them to the right. Hence, the field does positive work on the particle as it moves from left to right, hence the voltage is higher on the left than on the right. If you put a negatively charged particle in that field, it will feel a force to the left. But because it's motion is in the direction opposite the field (i.e., negative), when you multiply that by its charge (which is negative) you get a positive amount of work done on it by the field and, hence, the voltage is higher on the left than on the right. All nice and consistent -- the work done on a negatively charged particle is positive if the particle moves from a lower voltage to a higher voltage.

Now go and pretend that current in the directly of electron flow is positive current. The ONLY way you can do that is to pretend that electrons are positively charged. But that now means that the work done by an electric on a positively charged particle is negative if the particle moves from a lower voltage to a higher voltage. There are only three alternatives to resolve this inconsistent mess: (1) keep the same laws of physics, which means that you have to now recognize that the voltage polarities are swapped and the right side is at a higher voltage than the left and that the electric field is now going the other way; (2) rewrite the laws of physics to include a bunch of minus signs here and there; or (3) apply magical mystery minus signs whenever you run up against situations in which the answer has a sign that you don't like.

Yes, whether the electron is declared positive or negative is an arbitrary convention. But voltage is not. It follows directly from which arbitrary convention is chosen. You can't go halvsies-halvesies (except by choosing option three and resorting to magical mystery minus signs)

 

Just exactly are you doing in your life that what your asking is so important? If you just adhere to the normal + and - polarities of electrical devices you will/should be good to go in anything in electronics. You are making this way to hard for your self. Every chip and other component in electronics that are polarity dependent are clearly marked, either on the component its self or in the data sheet. You can't see the movement at the "electron" level so stop driving yourself crazy and get on with building things, if that's what you want to do.

Exactly, the time spent on 'is electric current flow wrong' could have been much better spent on something like researching how current flows in a wire due to Surface Charge. I spend much of my time dealing with 'flowing' charges of all types, positive or negative ions and electrons in and outside of wires so it's important to understand the physical movement if you are modifying material structures with electrical energy. I'm also interested in net charge, potentials, the forces of attraction and repulsion of those potentials, energy flows and such where the actual movement of electrons in the wires and circuits delivering electrical energy to the system is the last thing on my mind when working on a problem.

 

How many coulombs are there in 100 amps of positive charge flow?
How many coulombs are there in 100 amps of negative charge flow?

How many means "amount". Current is not expressed with polarity or direction. In this example the amount is the same, and it is always has a positive value. Current can only be expressed as a positive amount. How could the number (amount) of units passing a plane or point, be negative?

With electron flow, the polarity of the moving charge, and the direction of the moving charge, never has to be stated, because the moving charge is always negative, and it always follows the more positive voltage. If you know the polarity of the voltage, by default, you know the direction of charge movement.

This is not a mathematical short cut. This is what really happens.

Let's take a bowl of 12 apples. Protons.
Add 12 oranges. Electrons.
The bowl is neutral, no net apples or oranges.

Remove 4 oranges to another bowl. By the way, the oranges are real and have a positive count amount.

We now have 4 net apples in the first bowl. What dynamic (physical action) resulted in those 4 apples?
Did we add 4 apples? Did we even move any apples? No, we moved 4 oranges. The net gain in apples came from the movement of oranges.

Would it be true to say we added 4 apples? Did the total number of apples change? No matter what frame or point of view, were apples added anywhere? Did we need a supply of apples? Would it even be moral to say we added 4 apples? Were any apples moved anywhere? If the mathematical equation for this dynamic stated that the apples moved, would it be a valid equation?

Is this the proper way to study and explain nature?

Why would you trust and listen to such idiocy?

 

By convention, a thing with negative charge repels another thing with negative charge.
Nobody knows what negative charge is.
By convention, a thing with negative charge is repelled from a negative electric field.
Nobody knows what an electric field is.
This is convention.
An electric field does not exist, in the sense of, say, a flower.
An electric field is a mathematical description of something we cannot see or smell but has a physical influence on our universe.
An electron is the same, and a negative charge also.
This is by the conventions of Mathematics and Physics.
By the conventions of Electronics, Current is NOT the flow of Electrons forced from a positive electric field to a negative electric field.
Current is the flow of 'NOT electrons' in the exact opposite direction.
This is because William Gilbert, Otto von Guericke, Robert Boyle, Stephen Gray and C. F. du Fay, Benjamin Franklin, Luigi Galvani,
Alessandro Volta, Hans Christian Ørsted, André-Marie Ampère, Michael Faraday, and Georg Ohm, pretty much didn't know what they where doing at the time.

- " Current is the flow of 'NOT electrons' in the exact opposite direction. "
Charge flow (current[I am assuming positive charge]) of NOT electrons in the opposite direction. Without the ELECTRON to carry it through the wire. How *head scratch*.

 

How many coulombs are there in 100 amps of positive charge flow?
How many coulombs are there in 100 amps of negative charge flow?

How many means "amount". Current is not expressed with polarity or direction. In this example the amount is the same, and it is always has a positive value. Current can only be expressed as a positive amount. How could the number (amount) of units passing a plane or point, be negative?

With electron flow, the polarity of the moving charge, and the direction of the moving charge, never has to be stated, because the moving charge is always negative, and it always follows the more positive voltage. If you know the polarity of the voltage, by default, you know the direction of charge movement.

This is not a mathematical short cut. This is what really happens.

Let's take a bowl of 12 apples. Protons.
Add 12 oranges. Electrons.
The bowl is neutral, no net apples or oranges.

Remove 4 oranges to another bowl. By the way, the oranges are real and have a positive count amount.

We now have 4 net apples in the first bowl. What dynamic (physical action) resulted in those 4 apples?
Did we add 4 apples? Did we even move any apples? No, we moved 4 oranges. The net gain in apples came from the movement of oranges.

Would it be true to say we added 4 apples? Did the total number of apples change? No matter what frame or point of view, were apples added anywhere? Did we need a supply of apples? Would it even be moral to say we added 4 apples? Were any apples moved anywhere? If the mathematical equation for this dynamic stated that the apples moved, would it be a valid equation?

Is this the proper way to study and explain nature?

Why would you trust and listen to such idiocy?

-No. The answer is no apples were gained. Oranges were lost(transferred).

So is that how it works.

 

How many coulombs are there in 100 amps of positive charge flow?
How many coulombs are there in 100 amps of negative charge flow?

Nonsensical questions to start off with. This is like asking how many gallons are there in 20 mpg.

 

How is voltage defined? There is only ONE definition that I am aware of. The voltage of point A relative to point B is, by definition, the work done by an electric field on a unit charge in moving from point A to B (hence it is a scalar field having units of energy (work) per unit charge, or joules/coulomb). Any other "definition" you come across had better be consistent with this one.

How is electric field defined? There is only ONE definition that I am aware of. It is the net force exerted per unit charge at a given location due to all other charges (hence it is a vector field having units of force per unit charge, or newtons/coulomb).

If you have an electric field that is pointing from left to right then a positive charge will experience a force (and, yes Virginia, positively charged particles that can move in the presence of an electric field DO exist) pushing them to the right. Hence, the field does positive work on the particle as it moves from left to right, hence the voltage is higher on the left than on the right. If you put a negatively charged particle in that field, it will feel a force to the left. But because it's motion is in the direction opposite the field (i.e., negative), when you multiply that by its charge (which is negative) you get a positive amount of work done on it by the field and, hence, the voltage is higher on the left than on the right. All nice and consistent -- the work done on a negatively charged particle is positive if the particle moves from a lower voltage to a higher voltage.

Now go and pretend that current in the directly of electron flow is positive current. The ONLY way you can do that is to pretend that electrons are positively charged. But that now means that the work done by an electric on a positively charged particle is negative if the particle moves from a lower voltage to a higher voltage. There are only three alternatives to resolve this inconsistent mess: (1) keep the same laws of physics, which means that you have to now recognize that the voltage polarities are swapped and the right side is at a higher voltage than the left and that the electric field is now going the other way; (2) rewrite the laws of physics to include a bunch of minus signs here and there; or (3) apply magical mystery minus signs whenever you run up against situations in which the answer has a sign that you don't like.

Yes, whether the electron is declared positive or negative is an arbitrary convention. But voltage is not. It follows directly from which arbitrary convention is chosen. You can't go halvsies-halvesies (except by choosing option three and resorting to magical mystery minus signs)

Hello,

When i spoke of voltage myself i mean the voltage drop across a resistor for example.
When we use conventional flow, we use the rule that the node that the current ENTERS is the POSITIVE node for that element.
If we use non conventional flow (ha ha) we have to use the rule that the current ENTERS the negative node for that element.
This isnt that hard to figure out really

We can look into the field and stuff like that, but we end up with the same kind of situation.

Some physics books use electron flow and they dont seem to have a problem. Note sometimes the voltage polarity isnt even considered, just the fact that there is "12 volts across R1" for example. I dont like that either.