I am getting confused........ in one place it is said that electric current is the flow of negatively charged particles......but in another place it is given that by convention electric current is the flow of positively charged particles...which is right????
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electric current is a flow of positive particles in one direction, when supposedly it's really a flow of negative electrons going the other way
Because the negative particles carry a name that sounds like "electricity," some beginners unfortunately start thinking that the electrons ARE the electricity, and they wrongly imagining that the protons (having a much less electrical name?) are not electrical. A few text and reference books even outright state this, saying that electricity is composed of electrons. Nope, wrong. In reality the electrons and protons carry electric charges of equal strength. If electrons are "electricity", then protons are "electricity" too.
Now everyone will rightly tell me that the protons within wires cannot flow, while the electrons can. Yes, this is true... but only true for metals. And it's only true for solid metals. All metals are composed of positively charged atoms immersed in a sea of movable electrons. When an electric current is created within a solid copper wire, the "electron sea" moves forward, but the protons within the positive atoms of copper do not.
However, solid metals are not the only conductors, and in many other substances the positive atoms *do* move, and they *do* participate in the electric current. These various conductors are nothing exotic. They are very common, they all around us; as close to us as they can possibly be.
Non-electron Charge-flow
For example, if you were to poke your fingers into the back of an old-style television set, you would suffer a dangerous or lethal electric shock. During your painful experience there obviously was a considerable current directed through your body. However, no electrons flowed through your body at all. The electric charges in a human body are entirely composed of positive and negative charged atoms or "ions." During your electrocution, it was these charged atoms which flowed along as an electric current. The current in your flesh was a flow of positive sodium and potassium atoms, negative chlorine, and numerous other more complex positive and negative molecules. During the electric current, the positive atoms flowed in one direction, while the negative atoms simultaneously flowed in the other.
Electricity" is made of negatively-charged particles called electrons. This fundamental error leads most people to imagine that electric currents are always a flow of negative particles. Actually, in some conductors the electric currents are a flow of genuinely positive charges, while in others the flows are indeed negative particles. And sometimes the currents are both positive and negative particles flowing at once, but in opposite directions within the same conductor.
We cannot arbitrarily proclaim which way the charges "flow," since their true direction always depends on the type of conductive material.
Because the negative particles carry a name that sounds like "electricity," some beginners unfortunately start thinking that the electrons ARE the electricity, and they wrongly imagining that the protons (having a much less electrical name?) are not electrical. A few text and reference books even outright state this, saying that electricity is composed of electrons. Nope, wrong. In reality the electrons and protons carry electric charges of equal strength. If electrons are "electricity", then protons are "electricity" too.
Now everyone will rightly tell me that the protons within wires cannot flow, while the electrons can. Yes, this is true... but only true for metals. And it's only true for solid metals. All metals are composed of positively charged atoms immersed in a sea of movable electrons. When an electric current is created within a solid copper wire, the "electron sea" moves forward, but the protons within the positive atoms of copper do not.
However, solid metals are not the only conductors, and in many other substances the positive atoms *do* move, and they *do* participate in the electric current. These various conductors are nothing exotic. They are very common, they all around us; as close to us as they can possibly be.
Non-electron Charge-flow
For example, if you were to poke your fingers into the back of an old-style television set, you would suffer a dangerous or lethal electric shock. During your painful experience there obviously was a considerable current directed through your body. However, no electrons flowed through your body at all. The electric charges in a human body are entirely composed of positive and negative charged atoms or "ions." During your electrocution, it was these charged atoms which flowed along as an electric current. The current in your flesh was a flow of positive sodium and potassium atoms, negative chlorine, and numerous other more complex positive and negative molecules. During the electric current, the positive atoms flowed in one direction, while the negative atoms simultaneously flowed in the other.
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