Conventional And Electric Current

The flow of electrons from source negative terminal to positive terminal is termed as electron current.

Conventional and electric current.

For a flow of positive charges both the electric current and the conventional current are the same. Conventional current flow is the one most often used. Conventional current is the flow of a positive charge from positive to negative and is the reverse of real electron flow. The conventional current for an electron flow is positive whereas the electrical current is negative.

Electric current can be either negative or positive but conventional current is always positive. Conventional current and electron flow. And we consider conventional current as the standard notation of current flow. Here all electrons flow from the negative terminal to the positive.

There is often a lot of misunderstanding about conventional current flow and electron flow. This was the convention chosen during the discovery of electricity. Current intensity is often referred to simply as current. Electron current and conventional current are two types of notation we use to mention current flow in a circuit.

Conventional current on the other hand is the flow of positive charges and is directed from positive terminal of the battery to the negative terminal. These two notations are opposite to each other. The i symbol was used by andré marie ampère after whom the unit of electric current is named in formulating ampère s force law 1820. This illustrates conventional current flow.

We need a notation to do some calculations like in kirchhoff s law. In the image below we can see current moving from the positive terminal of the battery through the resistance to the negative terminal of the battery. To gain an idea of the flow of electrons it takes 6 24 billion billion electrons per second to flow for a current of one ampere. Conventional current assumes that current flows out of the positive terminal through the circuit and into the negative terminal of the source.

All descriptions of electronic circuits use conventional current so if you see an arrow depicting current flow in a circuit diagram you know it is showing the direction of conventional current flow. When so defined the current is called conventional current. Hence electric current is the flow of electrons in a circuit. Electric current in a wire where the charge carriers are electrons is a measure of the quantity of charge passing any point of the wire per unit of time.

It is directed from the negative terminal to the positive terminal. The same is true for the electrical current. The notation travelled from france to great britain where it. Two types of current are normally employed is electric circuit one is conventional current and another one is electron current.