my question is that in a simple circuit one wire attached with battery cell ,and then electrons start flowing from lower potential to higher and as we know in metal wire only electron is the thing which is carrying charge ,,, then why we say there is current and it flow opposite to electron ??? even there is no other thing , please dont go in other stuff yeah i know positive charge also moves some where like alpha particals in some cases but here in simple circuit why they dont just say electron flow ? why current and why its opposite ???
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1$\begingroup$ possible duplicate of Why is the charge naming convention wrong? $\endgroup$– gregsanCommented Oct 12, 2013 at 13:53
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$\begingroup$ Possible duplicates: physics.stackexchange.com/q/68471/2451 and links therein. $\endgroup$– Qmechanic ♦Commented Oct 12, 2013 at 13:54
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It is a historical convention to denote the current as if it is carried by positive charges. It is absolutely true that the electron flow (the physical current) flows in the opposite direction of the conventional flow we assume in theory. Have a look here. In wires it is only electrons that carry the current
This contradiction doesn't affect the correctness of our results at all. That is why it was kept the way it is
answered Oct 12, 2013 at 15:24