Video Transcript
The diagram shows an electric
circuit containing a cell and a bulb. What is the direction of the
conventional current in the circuit?
Here, we have a circuit diagram,
and we’ve been asked for the direction of the conventional current in the
circuit. Let’s recall that conventional
current points in the direction opposite to electron flow because conventional
current is defined as the direction that imagined positive charge carriers in the
circuit would move. Because of this, conventional
current points away from the positive terminal and toward the negative terminal.
Remember that for the symbol
representing a cell in a circuit diagram, the longer line represents the positive
terminal and the shorter line represents the negative terminal. So since conventional current
always points away from the positive terminal and here the positive terminal is on
the right, we can draw the direction of conventional current like so. This is clockwise motion. The direction of conventional
current in this circuit is clockwise.
