Timeline for Why are electrons defined to have negative charge?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
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| Aug 28, 2013 at 13:35 | comment | added | Georg | ""that we assign the negative value to the electron's charge."" Not really: Franklin proposed to call the charge of a rubbed glass rod negative, the resin rods charge positive. The problem in laymans brains is not that convention, but the erronous thinking that electrons are "the" electricity, opposed to the technical direction of current. At core, Franlin was wrong, there are two kinds of charges, not an excess or deficit of charge: electrons and protons(nuclei) | |
| Aug 27, 2013 at 19:51 | comment | added | dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten | And seriously, think about the types of experiments they had to work with at the time. There was no way to know for sure. | |
| Aug 27, 2013 at 19:48 | history | answered | Kyle Kanos | CC BY-SA 3.0 |