I know that flow of electrons is not current, it is opposite to the direction of flow of electrons, is it just a convention? why such a convention was chosen if it is one. . Please correct me if you think i have very wrong assumptions.
In: Engineering
To add something I don’t see anyone mention, which might also make things more confusing. There’s something called the [speed of electricity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_of_electricity), and like one would predict, it’s very fast, a fraction of the speed of light. What most people don’t realize is the “drift velocity” of electrons themselves is very slow. Which begs your question, what’s “flowing”? Electricity is electromagnetic *energy* that is propagated through electrons. Think of a [Newton’s cradle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newton’s_cradle) with a hundred balls, and imagine perfect conservation of energy. Imagine the ball on one side coming down and hitting the adjacent ball. That momentum is going to travel down that line of balls. How fast? Some fraction of the speed of light. Then the ball at the other end pops up almost instantaneously. Same thing with electricity. Conductors in a circuit or power line are full of electrons that act as a medium for energy to propagate through. It’s the energy itself flowing, not so much the electrons.
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