Flow of current DC Circuit Neg to Positive

Thread Starter

ben sorenson

Joined Feb 28, 2022
180
Just wondering what the significance / usefulness would be if (if any) hypothetically in a DC circuit e.g from a 20 volts battery. If instead of current flowing from positive to negative, the circuit was able to run from negative to positive. Silly question
 

dl324

Joined Mar 30, 2015
16,846
If instead of current flowing from positive to negative, the circuit was able to run from negative to positive.
Conventional current flows from positive to negative. Electron current flows the opposite direction.
Silly question
I think most schools now teach conventional current flow. There are a few screwballs who insist on using electron current, but they just cause confusion.
 

Thread Starter

ben sorenson

Joined Feb 28, 2022
180
I guess what Im asking is what would the significance be if you could run a Battery powered DC circuit "backwards". Simple Example: Positive Side of LED/MOFSET/Transistor (No capacitors) connected to Negative side of Battery and Negative side of those components to positive. Just hypothetically for pretend if it was possible would there be any benifit if a circuit could run like that? And of it did, what would that mean?
 

BobTPH

Joined Jun 5, 2013
8,816
So you are asking what happens if you connect an LED backwards to a battery? If the voltage and current capacity are large enough he LED will be destroyed.

Is this some “radical” new idea you have for free energy or something?

Bob
 

Wendy

Joined Mar 24, 2008
23,415
In batteries there are positive charge carriers, but since electrons are negative I prefer negative current flow. Chemistry opens up a can of worms. When you are talking about charge carriers.
 

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Those screwballs include most of the military electronics technicians since the 1940's. It's just a convention. For mathematical computation in circuit theory, conventional (Conventional current is defined as the Superset of all charge carrier flow directions and is non-physical) current eliminated the need for negation in several cases. Circuit theory computations work exactly the same either way (to calculate electrical engineering answers, not to answer physics questions on things like electrician energy flow) so understand both and use both when the physical nature of charge carrier movement is important like electrons/ions in tubes/batteries and back to conventional with solid-state in the same circuit.

https://www.nutsvolts.com/magazine/article/which-way-does-current-really-flow
 
Last edited:

nsaspook

Joined Aug 27, 2009
13,086
Like it or no, the majority of electronics is about electrons.
Yes, but knowing that tells you nothing about electronics, only about atoms. I deal with electrons, and sub-atomic particle interactions daily to make a small part of the electronics people here use. The majority of electronics is about energy and the transformation of energy using the geometry of charges. It's not the actual clay (electrons) that is important in the vast majority of circuits, it's the components build with electron manipulation in them that matter.
 

shortbus

Joined Sep 30, 2009
10,045
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