Timeline for Who (and Why) started the "electrons are negative, protons are positive" convention? [duplicate]
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
18 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Sep 11, 2013 at 13:06 | review | Reopen votes | |||
| Sep 11, 2013 at 14:40 | |||||
| Aug 27, 2013 at 21:33 | comment | added | intuited | It is an unconventional convention in that typically we associate a positive value with the presence of some entity. In the case of electrons, their surplus indicates a negative charge. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 23:43 | comment | added | Tesseract | There is a letter written by Benjamin Franklin in which he explains this to some degree. It's at books.google.de/… on page 8. But I don't think that's the first letter he wrote about that. There should be one where he proposes the positive/negative convention and explains why. I just can't find it. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 21:51 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | @Jim, one cannot get a convention "wrong" (otherwise it wouldn't be a convention). The fact is that electric current is not identical to electron current. | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 19:16 | history | edited | Pacerier | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 18, 2013 at 19:12 | comment | added | Pacerier | @BenCrowell, the questions are related but fundamentally different. I'm asking what's the reason for the convention. He's asking why is the convention wrong. Saying they are duplicates is like saying "what's the reason for playing games" is a duplicate of "why is playing games wrong"... | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 19:11 | history | closed |
user4552 Qmechanic♦ |
exact duplicate | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 18:04 | review | Close votes | |||
| Jun 18, 2013 at 19:11 | |||||
| Jun 18, 2013 at 17:49 | comment | added | user4552 | voting to close as a duplicate of physics.stackexchange.com/q/17109 | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 17:39 | history | edited | Qmechanic♦ |
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| Jun 18, 2013 at 17:32 | history | edited | Pacerier | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
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| Jun 18, 2013 at 17:31 | vote | accept | Pacerier | ||
| Jun 18, 2013 at 17:11 | comment | added | Alfred Centauri | Related: physics.stackexchange.com/q/17109 | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 16:52 | answer | added | Luboš Motl | timeline score: 19 | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 16:41 | comment | added | Jim | If you're asking me to tell you what his thought process was, I can't do that. But I think the specifics are that he thought the positive charge moved around the circuit and he thought it went the way we now know is opposite the motion of electrons. But I could be wrong | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 16:37 | comment | added | Pacerier | @Jim, since he knew that there are more electrons in one place and less electrons in the other place, Why guess minus-sign should designate the place with more electrons when the other option seems more reasonable? | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 16:32 | comment | added | Jim | I think it was Ben Franklin. He called electrons negative as a guess. 50/50 chance and he got it wrong | |
| Jun 18, 2013 at 16:27 | history | asked | Pacerier | CC BY-SA 3.0 |