- #1
Howard Nye
- 12
- 0
Hi all,
I don't know much about physics, but I understand that when you turn on a light switch, electric charge flows to the lightbulb because electrons in the wire bounce into each other (that's right, isnt' it?). Unfortunately, the electrons are negatively charged, but Ben Franklin, who named the charges 'negative' and 'positve', falsely believed that the charge carriers were positively charged, and his convention of calling the direction of the current the direction of movement of positive charge has stuck. So we have to say that the electrical current flows from the lightbulb to the source of the electricity.
If that's right, and I want to talk about the physical quantity that travels from the source of the electricity to the lightbulb, I assume that I should just say that electric charge travels from the source of electricity to the lightbulb. Is that the description of the situation that is simultaneously most physically correct and most intuitive?
Thank you very much,
Howard
I don't know much about physics, but I understand that when you turn on a light switch, electric charge flows to the lightbulb because electrons in the wire bounce into each other (that's right, isnt' it?). Unfortunately, the electrons are negatively charged, but Ben Franklin, who named the charges 'negative' and 'positve', falsely believed that the charge carriers were positively charged, and his convention of calling the direction of the current the direction of movement of positive charge has stuck. So we have to say that the electrical current flows from the lightbulb to the source of the electricity.
If that's right, and I want to talk about the physical quantity that travels from the source of the electricity to the lightbulb, I assume that I should just say that electric charge travels from the source of electricity to the lightbulb. Is that the description of the situation that is simultaneously most physically correct and most intuitive?
Thank you very much,
Howard