• bandwidthcrisis@lemmy.world
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    7 hours 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.)

  • j4yc33@piefed.social
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    7 hours 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.

    • howrar@lemmy.ca
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      12 hours ago

      Turns out Benjamin Franklin had it right, and it was this time traveler that caused him to flip it to the wrong direction.

    • orbitz@lemmy.ca
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      12 hours 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.

  • ThomasWilliams@lemmy.world
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    13 hours 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.

    • Pee comes from the balls@lemmy.world
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      6 hours 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.

  • Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works
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    16 hours ago

    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

    • MuskyMelon@lemmy.world
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      41 minutes ago

      You just have to ignore the existence of electron flow.

      And ignore magnetic fields completely?

    • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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      12 hours 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.

    • ch00f@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

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

    • ThePyroPython@lemmy.world
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      15 hours 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 asylum makerspace to takeover!

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        1 hour 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.

  • Fedizen@lemmy.world
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    13 hours ago

    Couldn’t you fix this by also defining electrons as positive? Imo the physicists and electrical engineers should fight it out.

  • IntriguedIceberg@lemmy.world
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    15 hours 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 +/-?

    • sbird@sopuli.xyz
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      4 hours 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.

      • sbird@sopuli.xyz
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        4 hours ago

        Another example, the use of “abc” and “xyz” in Mathematics. Or “ijk” as index variables when programming loops.

    • Dalvoron@lemmy.zip
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      13 hours 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
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      14 hours 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. )

  • WolfLink@sh.itjust.works
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    13 hours ago

    There are situations where the charge carrier is positive (e.g. a positive ion flowing in a solution)

  • fleem@piefed.zeromedia.vip
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    12 hours 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?

  • takeda@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    15 hours ago

    True, but most of laws, equations etc still work and only specific fields need to adjust for this.

  • Zacryon@feddit.org
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    15 hours ago

    Doesn’t matter in a lot of cases. Just state the flow direction and convention once and then stick with it.

  • Dalvoron@lemmy.zip
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    13 hours 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