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The flow of electrisity is considered as opposite to the flow of Electrons? Why?

The flow of electrisity is considered as opposite to the flow of Electrons? Why?

Grade:11

1 Answers

Harishwar IIT Roorkee
askIITians Faculty 50 Points
9 years ago
The labeling of one polarity of charge as "positive" and the other as "negative" is totally arbitrary. It could be done either way and everything would still work out the same. Franklin didn't choose wrong; he just chose. Labeling protons as negative and electrons as positive wouldn't change anything.

Electric current is a flow of electric charge. Charge can be positive (protons) or negative (electrons), and both types of charged particles can and do flow in electric circuits:

In metal wires, carbon resistors, and vacuum tubes, electric current consists of a flow of electrons.
In batteries, electrolytic capacitors, and neon lamps, current consists of a flow of ions, either positive or negative or both (flowing in opposite directions)
In hydrogen fuel cells and water ice, current consists of a flow of protons.
In semiconductors, the current consists of holes, which are not quite the same as an absence of electrons.

(The Hall Effect can be used to show whether a charge carrier is positively charged and flowing in one direction, or negatively charged and flowing in the other.)

If you considered only the electron flow as current, your calculations would be wrong. You need to consider the net flow of charge, no matter what the charge carriers. Conventional current abstracts away the different charge carriers and represents all of these different flows as a net flow of positive charge, simplifying circuit analysis.

Conventional current is not the opposite of electron current, so if they were defined to flow in the same direction, it would be even easier to confuse them and go through life misunderstanding what current is. Electron current is a subset of conventional current. Conventional current combines the effects of electron, ion, proton, and hole flows all into one number.

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