Eli5: Why do we define current as the rate of flow of charges and not rate of flow of electron?

Question

Since current caused by the movement of electrons in the wire so shouldn’t current be define rate of flow of electron?

In: Physics

Answer 1

Because for current it doesn’t matter what charges are flowing. You can generalise equations to be applicable for any charge even though in practice its usually electrons that are flowing. For electrodynamics this is unnecessary specific we talk about charges and their motion in general.

For electronics the type of charge is also unimportant but the specific amounts become more important.

For understanding how conductors work and how we can make them more conductive we are talking matterial science where the properties of the main charge carriers like the electrons become more important.

So the principles that govern what charges do are independent from what charges exist but once you are looking at actual matterials whats there become the main question. Like how in quantum mechanics you can have spin 7/2 fundamental particles, the fact that (as far as we know) they don’t exist is another thing.