Re: Narges instead of charges?

[Ludwik Kowalski <kowalskiL@MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU>]

Larry Smith asked:

> Wouldn't you run into all the old problems when the current is
> due to movement of positive (charge) holes rather than electrons?

Bernard Cleyet added:

> > or ions in soln. or plasmas?

I was referring to metals in which only electrons contribute.
Ionic solutions (and other examples in which both + and -
are able to flow) would continue to be viewed as a flow of
two kinds of narges. It is not hard to convince students
that the flow of + to the right reinforces the flow of - to
the left (rather than cancels it). Once they realize this they
accept the arbitrary nature of the choice of direction. The
pedagogical difficulty of introducing the "no flow" direction
as positive is real and that is what I was trying to address.

I forgot to add that I was reacting to what was mentioned
by JohnD in another thread, several days ago. I was not
addressing another pedagogical difficulty: "why should
a hole be counted as a charged carrier (rather than a
neutral particle without a mass?")

> Ludwik Kowalski wrote:
> > > Suppose a decision is made to satisfy those who want to
> > > eliminate the century old discrepancy between the two
> > > directions. How can this be accomplished without creating
> > > new conflicts? By introducing a new physical quantity to
> > > be called NARGE. (Call it "new charge" if you wish.) By
> > > definition NARGE is the same thing as charge, except
> > > the sign is opposite. Thus the NARGE of an electron is
> > > +1.6*10^-19 C while the NARGE of a proton is
> > > -1.6*10^-19 C.
> > > An electric current is a flow of NARGE; its direction
> > > coincides with the direction in which electrons are flowing.
> > > The narge of an electron is positive, we can say that an
> > > electron is an ideal probe charge for any macroscopically
> > > charged setup. Why is this approach more desirable that
> > > redefining positive and negative? Because it would not
> > > turn the old textbooks obsolete. The concept of narge,
> > > used in all new textbooks, would coexist with the old
> > > concept of charge, for a decade or two. Then, with the
> > > help of the "establishment" it could become dominant,
> > > like SI became dominant.