this post was submitted on 02 Feb 2026
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Science Memes

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[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 17 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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.

[–] NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

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 points 5 hours 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.

[–] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day 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.

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 8 points 1 day ago

Currents aren't drawn incorrectly. Electrons do move backwards, but since their electric charge is negative, the current goes the correct way.

[–] suicidaleggroll@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

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.

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 16 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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 2 points 1 day 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.

[–] xthexder@l.sw0.com 51 points 2 days ago (18 children)

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.

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[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 353 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (6 children)
[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 106 points 3 days ago (2 children)

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 37 points 2 days ago (1 children)

While funny, this doesn't work because the time traveler told him specifically which one is negative.

[–] Jerkface@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago

"... Well now I'm not going to do it."

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[–] explodicle@sh.itjust.works 20 points 2 days ago (1 children)

IMHO Franklin is one of the few who would go straight to "what is it?" without blinking.

[–] AntiOutsideAktion@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 day ago

The comic accurately portrays him as nude

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[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 125 points 3 days ago (13 children)

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

[–] ch00f@lemmy.world 90 points 3 days ago (3 children)

You forgot science enthusiasts who are desperately trying to impress people.

[–] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 114 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They get lumped in with the lunatics

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[–] gazter@aussie.zone 4 points 2 days ago

I gave up on thinking about it (at least, DC) as flow, and started thinking about it as pressure. It's a small mental flip that made a bunch of things easier. I've also heard people talk about it as the movement of holes where electrons are not.

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[–] sirico@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

Not if I lift up the wire

[–] ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world 64 points 3 days ago (14 children)

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.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

flows outside the wire, not in it

Yet it propagates at the speed of light in the material the wire is made of

It's not meaningfully outside until its outside an antenna

[–] umt@lemmynsfw.com 1 points 3 hours ago

No, it propagates at the speed of light in space.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHIhgxav9LY

not this again ... wait i wonder, does this apply to coax cables as well?

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[–] TheRealKuni@piefed.social 76 points 3 days ago (7 children)

And that’s why we have positrons instead of the much-cooler-sounding negatrons.

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[–] DylanMc6@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I prefer a version of that meme with She-Ra in the photo

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