[bmacho]

> that makes electrons negative, and apparently nobody knows why

When there is a symmetry, there are choices, all the time in math, and sometime in physics too.

Also I don't like calling electrons negative, they are not. Maybe you can say that their charge is -1, when you model charge with the additive structure of real numbers / integers, and you choose the protons charge to correspond to 1. Modeling charge with the additive structure of real numbers / integers is very reasonable. (You could use red and blue numbers, but that's not a widely used structure.)

So you shouldn't say "electron is negative". That's weird, confusing, misleading, and trolling.

[bmacho]

Red and blue integers: there is red 1, red 2, ... 0, blue 1, blue 2, ... . Addition and subtraction as you expect. There is no ordering, also no multiplicative structure. There are 2 isomorphism into the additive structure of the integers. (Red and blue reals are defined similarly.)

I find this structure to model charge better. If not for else, at least it prevents you to ask silly questions about charge.

[hawski]

So you mean red like warm water and blue like colder? Warm is + and cold is -.

[crazygringo]

> So you shouldn't say "electron is negative". That's weird, confusing, misleading, and trolling.

Huh? By the convention you describe (and we all share), electrons have negative charge, since -1 is negative. When speaking in the shared and understood context of charge, you shorten that to saying electrons are negative.

Nothing weird, confusing, or misleading, and certainly not trolling. I'm baffled where you get that from.

[LgWoodenBadger]

He comes from an accounting background where commonly-understood terms mean the opposite of what everyone commonly understands them to mean.

[bmacho]

I am not sure what this means? Is this pure lies and insults? I don't see anything else here? In that case, fuck you very much :shrug:

[bmacho]

I mean I quoted baez, but I quote it again:

> makes electrons negative

It is not true, and trolling.

[crazygringo]

OK... so you've quoted them again.

You still haven't explained why it isn't true, or why it's trolling. Just saying those things doesn't make them true.

I can tell that English is not your native language from the number of grammatical errors you're making, so perhaps you're confused about something linguistic here?

[bmacho]

    1. the air is negative
    2. the air's temperature is negative
    3. the air's temperature is -1°C

    1. the electron is negative
    2. the electron's charge is negative
    3. the electron's charge is -1 p

and there are more levels in between and with higher precision. But you see, the 3rd version is true, not confusing, not surprising. The 2nd version is somehow fishy, but accepted in practice, when people operate in good faith, and it does not create confusion. baez opted for the first version, which is not common, true, or acceptable. Only to create confusion, which is trolling. While pretending that this is a real problem, for the third version. It's not.

I hope this answer is satisfactory, I hope to end this conversation, I don't like it.

[crazygringo]

Thank you for explaining your viewpoint. And I have to say I'm sorry, but you're just simply incorrect about this.

Again, it's clear English isn't your native language, and I suspect you're simply making a mistake about how English is used. Which is not uncommon -- I've made plenty of mistakes thinking that how something worked conceptually in English would apply to another language too, and then being corrected by a native speaker.

In English, it's perfectly conventional to say "the electron is negative" when you're talking about charge. It is linguistically and conceptually correct. There is nothing "fishy" and certainly nobody is "trolling", which is an unfair and uncharitable accusation for you to make.

Perhaps it isn't correct to say in your native language, I don't know. I'm sorry you didn't like this conversation, but hopefully you can use it as a learning opportunity.

[dotnet00]

I think you'll find that most people who would understand 2 and 3 would also understand the meaning of "the electron is negative" perfectly well, as humans (and at this point, probably LLMs too lol) can infer that the intent is to say 3, especially in this casual context of a social media discussion among normal people.

It isn't like "the air is negative", which has many context dependent meanings.