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I've red that virtual photons are a way of interpreting the electromagnetic force between charged particles. Is convention current a electromagnetic field or force? Or is it a movement of positive charge carriers?

I just red some things about it that look contradictory so maybe here I can get some clarification.

Fujita
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  • Are you talking about conventional current flow as used by electronics engineers (i.e. current flow from "+" to "-" ?) If so, that's just a math thing. Although the people who design electron tubes and semiconductor devices need to know something about the physics of current flow, the good folks who design circuits using those devices do not need to know anything about electrons. The convention of current flowing from "+" to "-" was established back in the 18th century, and nobody has bothered to update the textbooks since. – Solomon Slow Sep 15 '17 at 19:11
  • Yes i'm talking about current flow from "+" to "-". Even so electrons go from "-" to "+" does not mean it was wrong to say the current flow from "+" to "-" is wrong. They just go from "-" to "+" because they have a negative charge. I wonder if conventional current flow is an electric field. What would mean it consist out of "virtual" photons as far as I know. – Fujita Sep 15 '17 at 19:18

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I wonder if conventional current flow is an electric field.

Conventional current flow is not physical. It literally is nothing but a math trick. It's how electronics engineers understand and analyze circuits. It is based on an old, invalid understanding of what electricity is, but it still works in the context in which engineers use it.

Back when electricity was first studied, nobody knew about electrons. They knew that something flowed, and they called it "charge." An excess of charge was called "+", and a deficit of charge was called "-", and when a conductive path was established, the "flow" of charge from + to - was called "current."

Today we know that a + charge actually is a deficit of electrons, and a - charge is an excess of electrons, and we know that when electrons are the charge carriers, they move in the opposite direction of current flow. But literally, nobody ever bothered to change the old books. We still use the old definitions of "charge" and "current" because the old math still works.

Solomon Slow
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  • Current can consist of a flow of positive ions, too https://physics.stackexchange.com/a/17131/176 – endolith Sep 18 '17 at 14:48
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    @endolith, Yup! That's why I was careful to say "when electrons are the charge carriers." I didn't go off into a discussion about what else could be a charge carrier because the OP essentially is asking what conventional current flow means. What it usually means is that the person saying it is not interested in details of the actual physical process. – Solomon Slow Sep 18 '17 at 15:34