From: AlecTrevelyan006 | #009
So, kinda like how Ben Franklin defined electrons as the negative charge so we have to deal with that whenever we do electromagnetic calculations?
Yup. Except you can't really change that easily -- if we changed the sign convention we would have to rewrite all of the textbooks and it'd be a constant effort to make sure you've defined which convention you're using (... sort of like Thermo's sign convention). With this it's just an additional constant. Nothing is being undone.
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No amount of planning will ever replace dumb luck.