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Re: [Phys-l] Which one is positive?



I see Ludwik's motivation here as the teacher's honest desire to illuminate and explicate. But I suspect that the list in general can easily conceptualize
the use of Faraday's terms anode and cathode in their usual context.

If Ludwik were inclined to lay little conceptual traps around a concept
like 'anode' it would rather be in connection with a cell which, when providing energy to an external circuit, uses a mechanism whereby negative charge carriers are driven in the direction of the negative electrode, which in this context
serves the same purpose as the anode of the thermionic tube. It would also be true that positive charge carriers are driven towards the positive terminal, but which would count as a cathode in this context. Hence Chuck's earlier stricture that anode and cathode can be misleading terms around batteries of cells.

Brian W

ludwik kowalski wrote:

Consider a typical X-ray tube. The electrode that is heated (provider of electrons) is called cathode. The other electrode, toward which electrons are accelerated, is called anode. Outside the device (in wires forming a closed circuit) electrons flow away from what is commonly called anode, and they flow toward what is commonly called cathode. /snip/
Ludwik
= = = = = =




On Jun 17, 2010, at 12:19 PM, Pete Lohstreter wrote:


There are other problems, including abuse of the terms
"anode" and "cathode".