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For the study of electric circuits, it seems like it would have made more sense to establish that electrons carry a positive charge, and protons a negative one. That way, arrows representing current would actually represent the flow of electrons. I've never come across a reason to support the convention in place today. So, besides the hassle of changing this universal agreement, is there a reason in favour of the one in place ?

Emilio Pisanty
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James Well
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    It's the enormous hassle of changing it. You can build a consistent system with the numeric value of the charges switched. See XKCD – Cort Ammon May 19 '17 at 15:27
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    No, it's all historical convention. Say a big "thank you" to Ben Franklin, who guessed the direction of charge exchange incorrectly. And, yes, it's too big a hassle to change now. Consider the difficulty of switching the US and Britain to metric measurements. – Bill N May 19 '17 at 15:28
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    The difficulty if switching from Imperial to Metric is (from experience) wildly over-exaggerated. Changing sign conventions for charges would, by comparison, be a minefield given the amassed scientific and engineering documentation that would be rendered confusing as blazes for no practical gain. – StephenG - Help Ukraine May 19 '17 at 15:38
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    Possible duplicate of Why is the charge naming convention wrong?. Oher duplicates include https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/142150, https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/68471/, https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/210984/ and https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/80503. – Emilio Pisanty May 19 '17 at 16:32

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