Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't electricity the flow of electrons. There are no "positive" particles in electricity. There are positive particles in the wiring and all mass for that matter, and the configuration of the electron shell determines a material's conductivity, but electricity is the movement of electrons, which are purely negative.
In fact there is no difference. Positive particles do indeed exist in a sense, and they are all over the computer you are now using.
"Electron holes", which are positive, are the basis for transistor and semiconductor technology.
But still, the article sounds quite off base to me.
It doesn't matter whether they're positive or negative. Usually they're electrons (negative) because they're relatively easy to get sufficiently free of atoms that they can flow; either through a conductor (e.g., a wire), through a gas (e.g., a lightning bolt), or empty space (e.g, a vacuum tube).
But they can be positive too. Most of the world's biggest atom smashers accelerate protons, which are postive particles with the same magnitude of charge as an electron, but about 1836 times their mass.
Another truly weird positive particle is the "hole," which is the absence of an electron where there's "supposed" to be one in a semiconductor material. You'd think that you could just treat holes mathematically like tiny regions that are missing electrons, but you can't. You have to treat them as objects of positive charge and negative mass, which makes sense (to the extent that it does) only through the use of quantum mechanical models of the solid state.
Semiconductor devices (microchips, etc.) depend as much on hole conduction as they do electron conduction.
--Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't electricity the flow of electrons.
It's just a model. If negative charges are moving in one direction there are positive moving in the other. I don't think anyone's ever seen anything actually moving.
True. I caught that part as well. A number of capacitors in series, however, might be more efficient for generating power from a given potential than a steady stream of electrons using a standard brush-style motor. I can't recall enough electrical theory to work it out.
Sort of. Positive potential is created through the absense of electrons (referred to as "holes"). Holes are vital in semiconductors.
You are correct, sir. Electrons are negative potential particles that orbit atoms in conduction bands. "Positives" are simply positive potential "holes" in the bands that attract electrons.