Sparkfun should take it upon themselves to correct the centuries-old mix-up of "conventional current" next :)

I always thought this was really interesting. The Coast Guard's Electrician's Mate training program taught electron-flow theory, so it was tough to switch my brain to hole-flow theory when I went to college. Technically the math is the same but man it threw me off with schematics.

	▲	userbinator 5 days ago \| parent [-]
		Was that in the context of vacuum tubes? There, electron flow definitely makes sense.

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DecentShoes 5 days ago | parent | prev [-]

What's that?

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Cyan488 5 days ago | parent [-]

Ben Franklin's coin flip landed the wrong way - nowadays electronics circuits are calculated and drawn assuming movement of positive charges, when in reality it's the negatively charged electrons that flow.

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cperciva 5 days ago | parent [-]

Nothing wrong with saying that an absence of electron is moving. Both electrons and electron holes are just excitations in a quantum field anyway... ;-)

	▲	mlyons1340 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		AFAIK, Electron holes refer to the P-type charge carrier in a semiconductor lattice where the absence of electrons behave similar to electrons in an N-type semiconductor. Benjamin Franklin was not concerned with solid state physics rather he's referring to the charge carrier in a conductor being positive when we later discover that its negative (electrons). When current flows through a conductor its just electrons (not holes) moving from negative to positive.