This is a question on many student’s minds: what are the electrons actually doing inside a current-carrying wire?
The answer might seem straightforward at first glance. An electrical current is a flow of charge moving through an electrical conductor or through space. From electronics-notes.com , we have a practical definition of electrical current: it is “the rate of change of flow past a given point in an electric circuit.” From physicsclassroom.com (an excellent teaching site), the definition alludes to a bit of scientific history: An electric current is “by convention the direction in which a positive charge would
The silver lining of this conventional terminology is that it nudges us toward the history, which shows an incredible advancement in solid-state physics. How was electrical current discovered ? We probably all know about Benjamin Franklin’s famous kite experiment in 1752. We might not know that he didn’t actually discover electricity with this experiment, nor was he the first to discover that lightning was actually a type of electricity. Electrical forces had been known for hundreds of years by his time. I