Fire and Ice

[Obadiah]

Car batteries use as electrons flow from negative to positive a positive ground system.

No, most modern cars use a negative ground system. There were a few old ones that used positive ground, but that still has no bearing on which direction the current flows, only on how it's routed through the various things it powers, the car chassis being one of the things that is powered.

 

[jasonc]

Ok, I'm really not understanding what you are talking about here? I've designed a lot of 12 volt RV and boat systems for people, and still don't know what you are talking about. I've never even heard of an email magnet or a motor "backfeeding" a system. I'm afraid all of that is above my level of knowledge.

My phone.I edited it to em short for electro magnet which is a coil of wire around a piece of iron that is charged only magnetized then.alternators use those.a hybrid car has no alternator, but a starter only and it becomes the alternator after the car is running
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-electromotive_force

 

[jasonc]

No, most modern cars use a negative ground system. There were a few old ones that used positive ground, but that still has no bearing on which direction the current flows, only on how it's routed through the various things it powers, the car chassis being one of the things that is powered.

I'm saying other wise as an electrical engineer in the classes I took says it works that way.

 

[KevinK]

In Physics 101, they explained it to us thusly: When good ol' Benjamin Franklin was studying electrical circuits, it came down to a 50/50 choice- it was either negative particles travelling from the negative terminal to the positive one, or positively charged species going from the positive electrode towards the negative one. He went with the latter and positive-flow current became the established convention. It was years later that physicists determined that it was actually negatively-charged particles called electrons that were moving negative-to-positive, the exact opposite of Ben's guess.

So the direction of electric current actually depends mostly on whether you're talking to an electrician/engineer or a physicist. In almost all cases it doesn't even matter, as long as you keep the direction convention consistent.

(p.s. of late I have seen way more complex explanations of this conundrum, e.g. differentiating between particle flow and current flow which may be in opposite directions simultaneously or something like that. If anyone wants to go there, be my guest. I sure don't!)

 

[KevinK]

That would be...potassium chlorate?
A substance which, when you add water, combusts and burns.

I'm pretty sure its potassium chlorate, lol. School was a looong time ago.
Am I right?

I'm almost thinking you're thinking of just potassium (although potassium chlorate is used in explosives and fireworks). Like other Group 1 metals such as sodium and lithium, potassium reacts violently with water, generating enough heat to ignite the hydrogen gas byproduct of the chemical mixture.

 

[Edward]

I'm almost thinking you're thinking of just potassium (although potassium chlorate is used in explosives and fireworks). Like other Group 1 metals such as sodium and lithium, potassium reacts violently with water, generating enough heat to ignite the hydrogen gas byproduct of the chemical mixture.

That could be. I was reaching pretty far into memory there lol.