Yahoo Answers is shutting down on May 4th, 2021 (Eastern Time) and beginning April 20th, 2021 (Eastern Time) the Yahoo Answers website will be in read-only mode. There will be no changes to other Yahoo properties or services, or your Yahoo account. You can find more information about the Yahoo Answers shutdown and how to download your data on this help page.

Electrons and Protons?

Some people say that Electron should be marked Positive and Protons should be Negative. Please explain if you think the same way.

7 Answers

Relevance
  • 2 decades ago
    Favorite Answer

    No. The changes aren't good, they lead to confusions. We shouldn't change the established rules even if they are from the early days of physics. Tradition and quality, they go hand in hand. Maybe if a extraterrestrial civilization will conquer the Earth, they will be electrocuted by our machines, or at least they couldn't use them. This is a good policy to protect ourselves from intruders.

  • 2 decades ago

    actually, this positive-negative thing is just a simple nomenclature... there's no such thing as positive charge or negative charge... it is just that the 2 charges are of different types... they could have been given anyother name too.. like alpha , beta or anything else...

    ppl say this because before the discovery of electrons it was thought that current flows from positive to negative terminal.. i.e. positive charges flow... but later on they came to know that it is actually the negative charges that flow n also that flow from negative to positive...

    that's why they say that electron should be marked +ve n proton -ve so that's in accordance with the conventional current.

    but obviously there's no need for that now.

    Source(s): my physics teacher
  • 2 decades ago

    Electrons are definetly negative, and protons are definetly positive. You may be thinking of the flow of electricity, in which case, although it's the electrons that move, convention says that you have to imagine positively charged particles moving (in other words, the direction of flow of electricity is reversed).

  • 2 decades ago

    It's irrelivant. It's like left and right. left is one way and right is the opposite way, until you turn 180 degrees and then what was left is now right, and what was right is now left.. Positive and negative are only labels that represent opposites of one another like yin and yang. But if you all of a sudden decided to call Electrons positve and Protons negative it would only confuse things, but the calculations would work the same only negatives and positives would switch.

  • How do you think about the answers? You can sign in to vote the answer.
  • 2 decades ago

    Electrons , Protons and neutrons are parts of an atom .Electrons revolve arnd the atoms in orbits called SHELL & r definetly negative in nature. .protons & neutrons are packed together in the center of those Electrons.Protons are positive in nature.Protons and neutrons define the chemical and physical properties of an atom

  • Anonymous
    2 decades ago

    You see, the conception of charge first evolved from elementary electrostatic phenomena, like combs attracting paper bits.... Later on we tried to reconcile these observations to the celebrated theory of atoms & molecules. Expriments [cathode-rays...] proved subatomic particles show identical behaviour to "charged" bodies. these ewre discovered to b electrons & we conceived of protons to balance the total chrge. Now whether u call electrons charge to be +ve or -ve is purely a matter of convention. It is the standard convention to take protons as"+" and electrons "-" but there is no harm in doing the reverse.

  • J.D.
    Lv 6
    2 decades ago

    30 years ago it was Protons-Positive, Electrons-Negative and Neutrons-Negative.

    But then there are arguments to this day on AC electricity...

    some say it flows negative to positive and other vice-versa.

    It's all based on theory, but it works anyway regardless.

Still have questions? Get your answers by asking now.