this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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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.
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.