why do electricity flows from positive to negative while current flows from negative to positive?

Question

While searching in net i founded that current flows from negative to positive and got the reason of it too.

but then founded that electricity flows from positive to negative?

How can it be?

Can someone help me answering it, but please don't answer it in complicated science as i don't know much about it.

Answer 1

no you got it sort of wrong,conventionally we take that current is a flow of positively charged particles that flow from higher to lower electrical potential....current flows from positive to negative(its true for water current to...higher potential to lower potential)...scientist discovered electrons much later,and found that electrons are responsible for current not any positively charged particle ....but much of electrical engineering have advanced on the above convention ,so the decided that flow of electron in one direction is equivalent to the flow of a +vely charged particle in opposite direction.....

so electrons go from negative to positive

current/electricity flows from positive to negative

Answer 2

Electricity flow IS current, same thing.



It can be complicated. Ben Franklin made a mistake in assigning charge polarity, he guessed wrong.



For long afterwards, scientists though charge was made of positive elements and current flowed from + to –, and a lot of our math is based on that.



Then the electron was discovered, with a negative charge, and it was found to be the main component of electric current. But it was too late to change our thinking, and texts, and formula, etc.



So engineers still consider current (electricity) to flow from + to –, but knowing that it actually is the opposite. But the math all works fine, so that's the way electronics works today.



To cover your error, this applies to both electric current, electric voltage, and "flow of electricity".

Answer 3

This is due to the definition of "current", which was simply defined as flowing from positive to negative.



The reason for this is that electric currents were discovered before electrons were, so nobody knew what actually carried the current. As such, scientists defined positive at the starting point and negative as the ending point.



It was only some time later that people found out that electrons are actually negatively charged.

Answer 4

I think you have misunderstood a bit. By convention Electric current is considered to flow from positive to negative terminals. But the flow of electrons is from negative to positive terminal.



This is because electricity was studied before the discovery of electrons. And the researchers at the time arbitrarily chose the positive and negative charges and considered electricity to flow from positive to negative. All this was before the discovery of electrons. By this time the basic equations and concept of electricity was already formulated.



After electrons were discovered, it was found that electrons are the carriers of negative charge and that the electron move from negative terminal to the positive. This didn't effect the equations of electricity cause they are the same either way. Just the direction changes.



So actually the negative charge carrying electrons flows from positive to negative. But due to the age old convention, electric current or electricity is considered to flow from positive to negative.

Answer 5

Electricity flows in a conductor by means of movement of electrons associated with the atoms of the conductor. Thus, at one end of the conductor, the negatively charged electron is moved to the positive terminal of the voltage source since unlike charges attract. In that sense, electricity thus moves from negative to positive. However, when electricity was first discovered, this was not known and so it was ASSUMED that it flowed from positive to negative. To distinguish between the two, the latter is sometimes referred to as: "Conventional flow of electricity"

Answer 6

A forward biased diode has an electron flow from the cathode(N) to the anode (P). Assume there is a load from the negative side of the battery to the diode's cathode, then electrons leave the negative terminal of a battery flow through a load connected between the battery and the cathode of the diode, then flow through the diode leaving on the anode terminal and going back to the + terminal of the battery. This is electron flow. The electron was discovered in 1896. Before the electron was discovered current was thought to be the flow of positive charges. This is called convention current. Conventional current flows from the anode (P) to the cathode (N), in the direction of the arrow. Assume the load is still between the diodes cathode and the battery's negative terminal, conventional current would leave the positive terminal of the battery, flow into the anode, exit the diode at the cathode, flow through the load and back into the negative terminal of the battery. Internal to the diode are free electrons and empty valence electron sites called holes. When the diode is forward biased both holes and electrons head to the PN junction were they recombine. The Cathode supplies more electrons and the Anode supplies Holes. In actuality holes are artificial they act as a positive charge but what they are in fact are missing electrons in the silicon atoms electron shells. When the external circuit supplies the anode a hole in actuality an electron from the diode is leaving the anode and entering the external circuit.

Answer 7

challenging situation. query with search engines like google. that might help!