[R-390] Current direction

[Mark Huss]

As an Electronics Instructor in ASA and Inscom, the old saying is that 
you could always spot the budding Engineers at a very young age.  They 
were the ones who thought they could bring the hole in the sand home 
from the beach.
With tubes, the difference between hole flow and electron flow is HUGE.  
It actually determines the physical placement of the elements.  Is there 
an equivalent difference in the operation of solid-state?

Jim Haynes wrote:
> On Fri, 20 Mar 2009, Roy Morgan wrote:
>
>   
>> If I remember correctly, at one time the Navy, and possibly other
>> services too, taught basic electricity with the idea that the current
>> flowed in the direction of electron movement.  So, the positive
>> terminal of a battery would be shown with the  current *entering* that
>> terminal.  Then, there was a reconciliation with the rest of the world
>> and all the training materials and schematics and so on got changed.
>> This likely was before WW-II: I don't have any examples of that
>> convention.
>>
>>     
> When I was an E.E. student in the late 1950s the texts all showed
> "conventional" current flow, positive to negative.  At the time we had
> a lot of veterans and particularly the Navy ones were vociferous that
> the texts were all wrong and that current went with the electrons,
> negative to positive.  It was hard to get them to realize that it
> doesn't really matter so long as you are consistent; the answers
> will be the same either way.  (It's not the same as believing that
> Niagara Falls will flow uphill!)
>
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