Conventions
A flow of positive charges gives the same electric current, and has the same effect in a circuit, as an equal flow of negative charges in the opposite direction. Since current can be the flow of either positive or negative charges, or both, a convention for the direction of current which is independent of the type of charge carriers is needed. The direction of conventional current is defined arbitrarily to be the direction of the flow of positive charges.
In metals, which make up the wires and other conductors in most electrical circuits, the positive charges are immobile, and the charge carriers are electrons. Because the electron carries negative charge, the electron motion in a metal conductor is in the direction opposite to that of conventional (or electric) current.
Read more about this topic: Electric Current
Famous quotes containing the word conventions:
“Art, it seems to me, should simplify. That, indeed, is very nearly the whole of the higher artistic process; finding what conventions of form and what detail one can do without and yet preserve the spirit of the whole—so that all that one has suppressed and cut away is there to the reader’s consciousness as much as if it were in type on the page.”
—Willa Cather (1873–1947)
“Why does almost everything seem to me like its own parody? Why must I think that almost all, no, all the methods and conventions of art today are good for parody only?”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)