Last week, I had a bit of a fit, I must admit.
Big dif, you may say. Fair dinkum; I usually spend my Tuesdays having a fit. But most commonly about politics, bully nations, or moronic humans. And although this one does tangent the “moronic humans” category, it also casts a dire light on one of my least commonly begrudged corners of human civilization: Namely the natural sciences.
A fellow teacher approached me, unsure in their tutoring. He’s teaching a special needs kid the wonders of electric physics. The kid has disagreed with the tutor, so they approach me for verification.
“Colleague!”, he asks me with a questionaire in hand, “which way does the electric current run?”
I look up from my book with a nonplussed look on my face before I slowly answer, unsure if this isn’t a trick of some sort:
“The electrons are the current, so from the battery’s anode to its cathode. From the negative to the positive, mah dude…”
“That’s what I thought”, the tutor confirms and scuttles back to his pupil.
The question bugged me though. And I am well aware, thank you Sarah, that I’m a bit of a geezer guesser, a hip shooter, a… person prone to extrapolating answers rather than looking them up or actually knowing them. I’ve got a pretty good hit-n-miss ratio, mind you, but I’ve been made aware that I should check my own intel every once in a while.
So I do. And ‘lo and behold, I find my extrapolation in this current circumstance to have been too correct for science…
Turns out that I was “wrong”. No, it’s certainly the electron that pulses through the wires of electronics. But that’s not the definition of the current. Despite the fact that I know not a single circumstance in which protons, or hydrogen ions, run through an electric wire, the definition of an electric current is that it runs from the positive cathode to the negative anode.
Why?! Because the convention of how the electric current “works” was defined before we understood what exactly was running in it.
Suffice to say, I flip my shit. I ask my engineer friends for clarification, and they confirm. And yet, a full week past, I’m still pissed. This is some of the most unscientific bullshit I’ve ever read from scientific sources. This malarky has completely thrown my understanding of the right hand rule of magnetism out the window, and I feel robbed for it, sirs and/or madams!
Fix your shit and fuck yourselves sideways with a rancid horse radish, electro-physicists and electricians! This is not how science works! I understand that the direction of current isn’t the most relevant tool in the field, but the convention is wrong! Which in itself is fine, most science ever grasped at by humans has been proven wrong eventually. But when it is, you fix it! You amend that shit like a good scientist and go on with your fucking day with a better understanding of your universe! You don’t just let it sit around to gather dust and bile like it doesn’t matter. You don’t just tell teachers and tutors to bring their handwavium to school! The scientific method matters. And according to the scientific method, you rectify your faulty assumptions and models once the current ones prove themselves incorrect or faulty. You lazy clowns of science, get your fucking shit together!
… It’s fine. I’m fine. The fact that the electric current runs from positive to negative while you’re charging the system is a feeble comfort, considering that the charging circumstance is tertiary to discharging, but fine. Despite the fact that running protons through a high-speed wire prone at velocities that generate heat sounds as dumb as a Hindenburg, it’s fine! The fact that electrical physics holds itself exempt from the tenets of the scientific method will simply have to be excused as… whimsical asshattery that hasn’t gotten in the way of the invention of the… I don’t know, induction recharge of electric cars from augmented motorways.
But know this, electro physicists, electricians, and assorted Edisons of the world: From mine heart to thee, I curse your lackadaisical concern for the knowledge of man. From mine mind to thee, I loathe thine traitorous disregard for the progress of science. From hell’s heart I stab at thee, for thine negligence of purpose. You suck.
/Sebastian Lindberg 15/6-2021
WastedWords 