CLASSIC PROBLEM - A traveling salesman (selling shoes) stops at a farm in the MidwestBefore he could knock on the door, he noticed an old truck on fireHe rushed over and pulled a young lady out of the flaming truckFarmer Crane came out and gratefully thanked the traveling salesman for saving his daughter’s lifeMrCrane insisted on giving the man an award for his heroismSo, the salesman said, “If you insist, I do not want muchGet your checkerboard and place one grain of wheat on the first squareThen place two grains of wheat on the next squareThen place four grains on the third squareContinue this until all 64 squares are covered with grains of wheat.” As he had just harvested his wheat, MrCrane did not consider this much of an award, but he soon realized he made a miscalculation on the amount of wheat involved.
In electricity electrons actually flowBut the notation showed in a conventional system is opposite to the actual flow of electronsBenjamin Franklin assumed electric charge moved in the opposite direction that it actually does, and so objects he called negative (representing a deficiency of charge) actually have a surplus of electronsBy the time the true direction of electron flow was discovered, the nomenclature of positive and negative had already been so well established in the scientific community that no effort was made to change it, although calling electrons positive would make more sense in referring to excess chargeHowever, because we tend to associate the word positive with surplus and negative with deficiency, the standard label for electron charge does seem backwardBecause of this, many engineers decided to retain the old concept of electricity with positive referring to a surplus of charge, and label charge flow (current) accordingly.
Electrons are tiny sub atomic particles with a - chargeElectrons travel only around the nucleus of the atom they inhabitThe nuclus of an atom is made up of positively charged particles and neutral particlesElectricity is created when these - charged electrons are attracted to a source of + charged atoms (more + charge particles in nucleus than - charged electrons surrounding it resulting in an overall + charge for the atom)hope this answers your questionElectrons have negative (-) electrical chargesSince opposite charges attract, they will move toward an area consisting of positive (+) chargesThis movement is made easier in an electrical conductor, such as a metal wireWith DC electricity, connecting a wire from the negative (-) terminal of a battery to the positive (+) will cause the negative charged electrons to rush through the wire to the positive charged sideThe same thing happens with a DC generator, where the motion of coiled wire through a magnetic field pushes electrons out of one terminal and attracts electrons to the other terminal.
The theory that electrons flow along the wire has been disproven about 10 to 20 years agoA lot of text book authors have not gotten the memoThink about it, if electrons did flow they would have to travel at the same speed as the flow of electricity through the wireThe wire is a solid objectTry switching on or off a light, and see how fast the light reactsDon't forget it takes a lot more energy to energize (light up / warm up to operating temperature) a light bulb, than to run itThere is also a cooling off period until the bulb goes darkElectricity flow is incredibly fast! The current flows from electron to electron.
