Electronic – How to explain current and voltage to a lay man

Now, this does get confusing when you get to semiconductor theory, and I understand your issue. I can name one very important case. When working with charge pumps in the human body. Many places in biology the charge flow is positive. When taking a biomedical modeling class for EE we often had positive charge flow.

We can get crazier, what if you have cancer? There are many options, sometimes you pick radiation. Photon radiation exists, what about proton radiation? The amount of protons they are sending are measured in Amperes. Why? Positively charged particles per second(enjoy the pun).

The important part here your particle makes an issue of. If electrons were positively charged the issue would be swept under the rug by most people. The fact that they are negatively charged makes people think about what it really means.

If you really get down to the physics it is just a sign convention and is a menial problem. If you would like to assign them positive charge please do so, be internally consistent and do not publish anything and no one will be the wiser.

The most important thing is that if electrons were positively charged we would not have nearly as great of a name for the positron. I personally would not live in a world were the negatron is a particle.

In a metal like copper some of the electrons are not bound to individual atoms. If a voltage is applied across a copper wire these free electrons flow from one atom to the next. This flow of electrons is an electric current but the copper atoms themselves do not move so the copper wire does not vanish. Of course, the voltage source must supply additional electrons for the flow to continue.

As an analogy, think of a waterfall -- the electric current is like the water molecules falling, and the water molecules are falling due to gravity (which is analogous to voltage). The waterfall must be supplied with more water molecules for the waterfall to continue to exist, but the riverbed over which the water molecules flow (analogous to the copper atoms) do not move or vanish.