Is a negative rail really NEGATIVE?

I was once taught that NEGATIVE is electron surplus not simply
relative potential, or a "positive" zone of electron depletion.

For example, electrons direct from a battery plate, as opposed to a
positive 24VDC power supply divided into "+ and -" rails by inserting
an earth reference midway, through the use of zeners.

IOW there was no real negative charge there before, so you only have a
positive charge divided into smaller segments.

Apart from whether not not it makes any difference in practice, does
anyone else see the distinction here?

Paul Kendall

 

if Ben Franklin had guessed the other way, there wouldn't be a problem.

 

The only time it really makes a difference is when you rub a balloon in
your hair and stick it to the wall. ;-)

For anything else, just invert all of the signs. The arrows on diodes
point in the direction of hole flow.

The thing I still don't understand is how the crt screen knows exactly
which hole to throw out of the phosphor, on a trajectory that exactly
matches the electric and/or magnetic fields through the deflection
plates/coils/ion trap, to land exactly on the tip of the field
emission cathode. ;-)

Cheers!
Rich

 

It'd be a _terrible_ problem! Then the charge carriers would be positrons,
and we'd all be made of antimatter! =:-O

;-)
Rich

 

Like the diode, they just follow the arrows.

 

good one. And "in mid-air" too!

 

Which way does Lightning ALWAYS travel?

And yes, it IS always the same way.

If the air gets too 'negative' the ground will suck it away eventually!

 

I find that a very funny remark.

It would make a great test for up-n-comers at a bar.

 

Damnit, Jim! I'm a surgeon, not a aaaaaaaaaaaa..........

 

Les Cargill expounded in

And he had a 50% chance of getting it right!!

I suppose he came out ok on the lightning experiment.

Warren

 

The ground is the attractor. The cloud carries the excess ions
(electrons grabbed mostly from the air molecules). It ALWAYS goes from
cloud, to ground when a bolt dumps the cloud's load.

The ONLY other is from cloud to cloud, as in "heat lightning".

But all cloud to Earth strokes are downward flows, regardless of how
the leader and plasma propagation might make some of them appear.