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What ridiculous history fact is your favorite? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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[โ€“] 2 points 2 years ago (1 child)

Maybe I'm biased because I'm a welder, but it always made more sense to me that electricity flows from the negative. Like , if the positive moved, wouldn't you change the element of the wire after a while? It also helps that you can tell the difference if an arc is positive or negative relative to the stinger depending on how the metal reacts, at least to a welder. I know that doesn't make any sense at all but it does to another welder lol

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  • [โ€“] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    So, when Ben Franklin named them, it was in terms of something like "excess of electricity". A positive excess of charge, like in the glass he used to define the term, is actually a deficit (negative excess) of electrons, which are the real fluid.

    Later on Crooks (I think?) figured out that if he cleared all the air out of a tube with mercury, he could force electrons out of the metal into open space, at the negative cathode end, and at that point they realised it was backwards.

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