• LordGimp@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    4 months ago

    Maybe I’m biased because I’m a welder, but it always made more sense to me that electricity flows from the negative. Like , if the positive moved, wouldn’t you change the element of the wire after a while? It also helps that you can tell the difference if an arc is positive or negative relative to the stinger depending on how the metal reacts, at least to a welder. I know that doesn’t make any sense at all but it does to another welder lol

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      edit-2
      4 months ago

      So, when Ben Franklin named them, it was in terms of something like “excess of electricity”. A positive excess of charge, like in the glass he used to define the term, is actually a deficit (negative excess) of electrons, which are the real fluid.

      Later on Crooks (I think?) figured out that if he cleared all the air out of a tube with mercury, he could force electrons out of the metal into open space, at the negative cathode end, and at that point they realised it was backwards.