GCSE Physics

Conventional Current

It was once thought that current flowed from positive to negative.
This was put forward by Benjamin Franklin (1706 - 90) and it became so widely accepted that it is still accepted today and called conventional current, even though it was found to be wrong in 1898 when Sir Joseph J Thomson discovered the electron*.

Consequently:

Though the electrons flow from negative to positive,
conventional current flows from positive to negative
(although conventional current doesn't really exist).


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