this post was submitted on 11 Mar 2026
443 points (96.8% liked)
Science Memes
19468 readers
1377 users here now
Welcome to c/science_memes @ Mander.xyz!
A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.
Rules
- Don't throw mud. Behave like an intellectual and remember the human.
- Keep it rooted (on topic).
- No spam.
- Infographics welcome, get schooled.
This is a science community. We use the Dawkins definition of meme.
Research Committee
Other Mander Communities
Science and Research
Biology and Life Sciences
- !abiogenesis@mander.xyz
- !animal-behavior@mander.xyz
- !anthropology@mander.xyz
- !arachnology@mander.xyz
- !balconygardening@slrpnk.net
- !biodiversity@mander.xyz
- !biology@mander.xyz
- !biophysics@mander.xyz
- !botany@mander.xyz
- !ecology@mander.xyz
- !entomology@mander.xyz
- !fermentation@mander.xyz
- !herpetology@mander.xyz
- !houseplants@mander.xyz
- !medicine@mander.xyz
- !microscopy@mander.xyz
- !mycology@mander.xyz
- !nudibranchs@mander.xyz
- !nutrition@mander.xyz
- !palaeoecology@mander.xyz
- !palaeontology@mander.xyz
- !photosynthesis@mander.xyz
- !plantid@mander.xyz
- !plants@mander.xyz
- !reptiles and amphibians@mander.xyz
Physical Sciences
- !astronomy@mander.xyz
- !chemistry@mander.xyz
- !earthscience@mander.xyz
- !geography@mander.xyz
- !geospatial@mander.xyz
- !nuclear@mander.xyz
- !physics@mander.xyz
- !quantum-computing@mander.xyz
- !spectroscopy@mander.xyz
Humanities and Social Sciences
Practical and Applied Sciences
- !exercise-and sports-science@mander.xyz
- !gardening@mander.xyz
- !self sufficiency@mander.xyz
- !soilscience@slrpnk.net
- !terrariums@mander.xyz
- !timelapse@mander.xyz
Memes
Miscellaneous
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
This has always messed with me to explain, but mostly since this confusion is based on different experiences. If you learn the theory and understand how to craft your own circuitry, pushing and pulling amps can be designed for, but if all you've ever done is install things like a contractor would, then all you're familiar with is pulling amps.
It always makes it such a hard explanation when someone says, "I thought you pulled amps." There really ain't an easy explanation, since most people are only familiar with systems designed to not be used outside their target voltage, so they don't experience Ohm's Law in action.
In retrospect, its probably because I only have these talks with contractors lel, and they've spent a whole lotta time going with the "Pulls amps" approach, and it works out well enough for them. Whatever works for the groups you're communicating among, I suppose.
I'm lost. How do you "push amps"? Technically it's just Ohm's law, and "pulling" or "pushing" are only colloquial terms, but in regular usage, a device "pulls" or "draws" a specific current.
The definition of voltage kinda supports this, because voltage isn't something that exists at a single point, like pressure - you can measure pressure in a single point of a fluid, for example, but not so with voltage: it's the difference in potential between two different points.
I'm trying to think of something like a taser gun, where you're kinda trying to "push amps" through some body, but even then there's two barbs that need to hit, if one of them fails you don't get the jolt (as far as I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong), so if anything you're "pulling" the current across with voltage.
If you think of water pressure from a tank to a tap as a "push" then potential difference is also making such a push. Well yeah ambiguity from colloquial terms exist here, but it is not between push and pull. The two points making potential difference, "pushes" amps through the wire connected in between them. You can say that is not a push but like a chain being rotated. The volts is doing the rotating aka pushing+pulling of the chains. But saying a device pulling amps is essentially that devuce becoming less resistive to the push done by volts
If a device consuming power is pulling amps, then consider a device generating power is pushing amps.
You can push electrons into a capacitor if you don't connect the other side. A few of them, but more than zero.
There are electrostatic generators that work by pushing electrons on one side and pulling from the other of some insulator that moves between those two. But you can't sustain a steady state of only one of those actions.
I think that's actually a good example for how I see it. If you could push amps, you'd fill the capacitor without having to pull from the other side, but that doesn't happen, only a tiny amount of current gets in depending on how strong the other side is pulling, which is very little.
In any case this is just mostly about colloquialisms and convention, because neither is an accurate description of the physics behinds it.
You get it. Pushing AMPs is just a voltage significantly higher than the voltage required to jump a gap, or short a circuit, ect. Depending on your application. I like to think of it as a water slide, the source is the high end, the circuit is the slid, and the sink is the bottom of the slide and pushing AMPs is attaching a comic book villan's version of a pump big enough to drain all the water from the ocean.
Nahh the "significantly higher voltage" comes only because your device having some form of protection preventing too much current flow. The most simple device would be a resistor and any change in voltage leads to a change in current. So yes you are pusing amps by changing voltage. Pulling amps is by changing resistance so that volt can push amps easier