You just have to ignore the existence of electron flow. Conventional current flow is all that matters, and the only people who use electron flow are those who design integrated circuits and lunatics
Why I gave up electronics club
Submitted 1 month ago by deHaga@feddit.uk to science_memes@mander.xyz
https://feddit.uk/pictrs/image/975efc2b-3c0d-499e-a21b-f800d72ebd15.webp
Comments
Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
ch00f@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You forgot science enthusiasts who are desperately trying to impress people.
Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
They get lumped in with the lunatics
mnemonicmonkeys@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
You mean the writers fpr “IFL Science”?
Yeah, we don’t want them. They’re idiots
JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
You mean to tell me that there are people out there whose job it is to design lunatics?
That’s fucking awesome. Like a real-life comic book author.
ThePyroPython@lemmy.world 1 month ago
It’s also useful to think of the “ground” plane as a sort of well of potential charger carriers that the conventional current model overlooks. Aside from simultaneously visualising what’s happening inside simple ICs like BJTs / MOSFETs and the circuit diagrams I’ve found it a useful way for checking for common mode noise in circuit and PCB design.
I guess this makes me a lunatic? Don’t know until we test it;
Someone give me an
asylummakerspace to takeover!JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
It’s also useful to think of the “ground” plane as a sort of well of potential charger carriers
I…think I understand ground loops (audio) now.
BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
Are you implying there there are IC designers who aren’t lunatics?
MuskyMelon@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You just have to ignore the existence of electron flow.
And ignore magnetic fields completely?
vaionko@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
In a lot of cases, yes. 99% of the time when designing electronics / electrical circuits you can safle ignore them.
Arrkk@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Also chemists doing electrochemistry where the direction of electron flow is very important. You also have to deal with anode and cathode being flipped from how you expect since you are putting current in instead of taking current out.
TheRealKuni@piefed.social 1 month ago
And that’s why we have positrons instead of the much-cooler-sounding negatrons.
MajorMajormajormajor@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Man, they have positrons and negatrons now? The Transformers franchise is wild.
Assassassin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
We gotta keep them out of sports, they are too strong.
TheFogan@programming.dev 1 month ago
Oddly when it came time to negotiations, they somehow realized actually calling yourself a Decepticon, was not a good name for inspiring trust.
SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world 1 month ago
For some reason every Negatron in the last Michael Bay movie was a black.
morto@piefed.social 1 month ago
“all models are wrong, but some are useful”
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
I would even go as far as to say that models are neither right nor wrong, they just are what they are. Like a flower is not right or wrong for blooming a certain way, it just does what it does and does not care about your right and wrong. This is simply because there is no morality outside of human society and therefore no way to establish right or wrong.
In fact, it is us who are right or wrong when we are using a model. We can use it in meaningful ways or nonsensical ways, it’s our choice. That’s why it’s us who are right or wrong.
Gap@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If I make a model of gravity which says that earth has a gravity of 1000000 m/s^2 then that model would be wrong.
No morality question at all.
Your comment however feels like an AI trying to justify the existence of AI models through the argument of “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”
Viceversa@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Who are talking about morals?
ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world 1 month ago
The current does flow from positive to negative. Electricity is not the flow of electrons - they just generate the field that the electric wave flows through. The electrons don’t actually move very far. The wave flows outside of the wire, not in it.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
not this again … wait i wonder, does this apply to coax cables as well?
Pee_comes_from_the_balls@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Electricity is not a real-concept, it is a qualitative aspect and the elec-root is what defines that aspect. There is no such thing as electricity, but there is current and in analog current, those particles flow as historically, that was the first convention for current. Also, electromotive force is what causes the movement of electrons, the magnetic field is just a componenent and does not induce EMR and the energy generated by it is akin to mechanical “work” caused by kinetic forces. It boggles my mind how even modern electrical engineers sometimes get this wrong.
Omnipitaph@reddthat.com 1 month ago
I’m going to be honest, I don’t think I’ve ever been confused when someone used the word “science” before, and it is usually pretty cut and dry what they mean when they use the word “science”.
“The sciences” - Various fields of study using the scientific method. “Doing science” - Using the scientific method to explore some hypothesis or harden a theory. “Scientific advancements” - The furthering of knowledge using the scientific method.
I would think most people feel that “science” is not an abuse of language, but a very clear and useful term, both in and outside of academia. At least with “science” it all revolves around the study of nature, usually through the scientific method. “Electricity” seems more like a vehicle, with parts that have to come together just right or you end up describing an entirely different phenomenon.
“Electricity” as you’ve defined it, is fucking wacko, and does not parallel “science” in anyway I currently see. I’m not saying that you’re statement makes you wacko, but that the culmination of these esoteric concepts makes up what we think of as a broad categorization of “electricity” is wacko.
Your explanation was really enlightening, actually, and while it took me a moment to acclimatize to the information, it was very helpful. Thank you.
xthexder@l.sw0.com 1 month ago
Most circuit diagrams do not draw current flowing in any direction at all. It’s just labeled + and -. I don’t see anything wrong with this. Image
deHaga@feddit.uk 1 month ago
Logically the switch comes before the bulb.
BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org 1 month ago
That depends, do you want high or a low side switch? There are valid reasons for either depending on what you’re doing.
Johanno@feddit.org 1 month ago
But the current doesn’t care
_druid@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
But then I get to talk about all those holes flowing.
Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Uhhhh…pornhub is that way ----->
_druid@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
Wait, no, but first, imagine marbles in a straw!
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I’m sure someone has uploaded some current diagrams…
bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world 1 month ago
While we’re at it, is a compass needle’s North pole actually a South so that it points North? Or is the Earth’s North pole actually South so that the needle’s North pole points to it?
(I know that I could look this up, I just want to confuse people.)
mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
But that’s by design, while this is a convention problem
Siethron@lemmy.world 1 month ago
We decided on North long before we discovered magnetism. But the magnet poles of the earth flip from time to time so ehhh.
j4yc33@piefed.social 1 month ago
OMG-O-S-H every circuit designed with conventional current just exploded because of your revelation here.
/s
My friend, this is the same branch of science that got us to space with calculations assuming spherical cows.
rumba@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
So, it doesn’t actually change anything; everything still works the same.
But textbooks need to be thrown away and remade, every circuit diagram, every electrical engineering plan, decades of research and research papers have to be combed and corrected, or accept that they’re wrong.
While technically possible, it would create colossal risk and unending chaos and It’s environmentally unsound, for something that doesn’t change anything in the end.
Lazy is not checking your mail.
Refusing to turn reality on its head for a null change in the end is something else entirely.
RaoulDook@lemmy.world 1 month ago
They don’t have to remake the textbooks in some cases - I’ve seen electronics (college) textbooks that were printed in 2 different versions for Electron Flow and Hole Flow.
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Refusing to turn reality on its head for a null change in the end is something else entirely.
I do agree with you, just want to give voice to the other side of this. Don’t underestimate just how much of a barrier this confusion is in teaching. It’s confusing. Students who are new to electricity almost universally hate this, and in some cases it can cause misunderstanding, miscommunications, etc. There is a genuine cost to this mislabeling, and there would have been effectively no cost if electrons’ charge was considered positive instead of negative.
As I said, I do agree that in practice, with all the existing knowledge, writings and technologies that all agree that electrons are negative, it would be a global disaster if the labeling was switched. There’s no question about it. But I kind of disagree about “null change”, it’s true that it wouldn’t change what we can create or (almost) any of our equations, but it absolutely would make it easier to teach it to future generations.
rumba@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
My electronics teacher weathered it pretty well.
This is a basic circuit. These are how the electric and magnetic fields work. Oh and Franklin fucked up a long time ago, made a guess, and he guessed wrong. So, realistically, electrons flow from negative to positive, and the holes they leave behind flow from positive to negative. (he had already covered PN junctions so it scanned) It doesn’t change the math or anything, just know that electron flow is negative to positive and that’s the last you’ll hear of it. And we all said that’s dumb. And now, in my life, this is like the 5rd time I’ve talked about it since I learned it in 1992.
gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
Eh, i’ve struggled with this for years but eventually found my peace.
You see, there’s two types of electric current: Electrons moving through a wire, and protons moving through water (the second one is also called a pH gradient, it happens e.g. in cell membranes of chloroplasts, fascinating stuff, check it out).
Basically plants do photosynthesis, which is extremely similar to what solar panels do. They generate an electric current, and in that current, positive charges move, so the “direction of current flow” is the correct one.
I have come to accept that the current inside living beings is more important than the current in all the machinery, because without life there would be no machinery, so life deserves to get the “correct” current.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This is such a good view of it that it also makes the professors I had that make the joke about it going backwards seem silly.
A lot of the old experiments on electricity were done with like paper dipped in salt water so of course physicists would lean towards defining it this way.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Couldn’t you fix this by also defining electrons as positive? Imo the physicists and electrical engineers should fight it out.
Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
The physicists are absolutely right. However, I reject their reality and substitute my own
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 month ago
That sounds like the electrical engineers I know
exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
No I need cations to be positive because the t in the word looks like a little plus sign so that’s an easy way to remember which is cathode/anode or cation/anion.
Fedizen@lemmy.world 1 month ago
This was very helpful on tests.
IntriguedIceberg@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Could someone explain what makes one pole negative/positive? Like, could we have named them Alice/Bob or is there a specific reason we went with +/-?
Dalvoron@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
Guessing here, but +/- is good for describing them as binary opposites as that system already exists. This is a good thing assuming there are two types of charge/pole which behave in opposite ways (Eg move differently in a field). It’s also just good to use numbers so that we can describe the amount of + and the amount of -, which numbers already do. It also allows us to describe neutral as neither + nor -, but 0. Again, we already have a scaffold there for numbers and it’s easy to copy it for new things when that makes sense.
Donjuanme@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Magnets.
If there’s no field there’s 0, if there’s a magnetic field clockwise it makes a positive charge, if there’s a magnetic field rotating counterclockwise it makes a negative charge,
Likewise if there’s a positive charge it makes a clockwise magnetic field and if there’s a negative charge it makes a counter clockwise field. (I may be backwards +/- clockwise/counter clockwise, something about the thumb on my left hand…, but really it’s all arbitrarily named, but the reason you just say negative or positive is that those are scalable measures, you can’t have half a Bob or 2 Alice. )
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
Since they are quite good opposites, the smart people who figured how all this worked decided on that and we stuck with it based on convention. Like how “Alice” and “Bob” were used in Computer Science since they are generic names beginning with the first two letters of the alphabet (it could have easily been any A and B name, but this is the convention!)
Similar can be said for magnets, the “North” and “South” poles are good opposites. If other people started the trend, we could have easily gotten something else, but this is the convention.
sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
Another example, the use of “abc” and “xyz” in Mathematics. Or “ijk” as index variables when programming loops.
takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
True, but most of laws, equations etc still work and only specific fields need to adjust for this.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
But then you have to flip from the left hand rule to the right hand rule!
Riverside@reddthat.com 1 month ago
Currents aren’t drawn incorrectly. Electrons do move backwards, but since their electric charge is negative, the current goes the correct way.
Dalvoron@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
I guess it would work much more often, but also not all currents are electrons flowing (Eg ions, holes arguably). I doubt the convention causes much trouble for people
Zacryon@feddit.org 1 month ago
Doesn’t matter in a lot of cases. Just state the flow direction and convention once and then stick with it.
suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Current is defined as the flow of positive charge. The fact that electrons, which are negatively charged, actually flow the opposite direction is irrelevant. The diagrams are still correct per the definition of current.
Viceversa@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Current is defined as the flow of positive charge.
No.
electric current, any movement of electric charge carriers, such as subatomic charged particles (e.g., electrons having negative charge, protons having positive charge), ions (atoms that have lost or gained one or more electrons), or holes (electron deficiencies that may be thought of as positive particles).
suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world 1 month ago
If you read a little lower in the wikipedia page:
The conventional direction of current, also known as conventional current,[10][11] is arbitrarily defined as the direction in which positive charges flow.
DylanMc6@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
I prefer a version of that meme with She-Ra in the meme
WolfLink@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
There are situations where the charge carrier is positive (e.g. a positive ion flowing in a solution)
PointyFluff@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
It’s not that hard. this is a skill issue, OP.
Please do not vote or have children.electricyarn@lemmy.world 1 month ago
You are a dipshit
Bazell@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
*toxic dipshit.
fleem@piefed.zeromedia.vip 1 month ago
so like, on my old car stereo system, the positive was actually coming through the frame of the car? scrape a little spot under the bolt of a seat?
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Red means on green means off, I hate electricity.
mexicancartel@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 month ago
Black means off?? What’s up with green?
Chippys_mittens@lemmy.world 1 month ago
In a power plant when looking at your system (various breakers, busses, transformers ect) red is closed (on) and green is open (off). At least in my power plant in the US.
sirico@feddit.uk 1 month ago
Not if I lift up the wire
bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 1 month ago
Obligatory XKCD
Image
howrar@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Turns out Benjamin Franklin had it right, and it was this time traveler that caused him to flip it to the wrong direction.
NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 1 month ago
While funny, this doesn’t work because the time traveler told him specifically which one is negative.
OpenStars@piefed.social 1 month ago
Damn time travelers,
alwaysnevermessing things up!SLVRDRGN@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Man, this one is a good one.
explodicle@sh.itjust.works 1 month ago
IMHO Franklin is one of the few who would go straight to “what is it?” without blinking.
AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml 1 month ago
The comic accurately portrays him as nude
orbitz@lemmy.ca 1 month ago
Always love their comics but since I don’t know crap about this stuff it’s amusing to see how this one is relevant to a meme. Wish I knew more but only so much I’ve learned so far. One day perhaps but not today.
helpImTrappedOnline@lemmy.world 1 month ago
www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
The contributes on this site do an excellent job explaining the comics. Not really ELI5, but more ELI15.
It’s okay to not understand every comic, someone else out there figured it and explained it to us.