Regardless of what electrons and other charged particles are (and are not), the phenomenon of electricity and how it transfers energy in a circuit or semiconductor is still not fully known.

The fact we have to use the terms "electric field" and "magnetic field" as if they were some magical force is the clue to this. The action of gravity is no different, though.

As Engineers, we don't always need to fully understand the science (although we need a good appreciation of it). What we do need to be able to do is understand the limitations of any models or concepts we use - that is, the boundaries between which the models continue to be predictable, and outside of which a result is not guaranteed.

Regardless of what electrons and other charged particles are (and are not), the phenomenon of electricity and how it transfers energy in a circuit or semiconductor is still not fully known.

The fact we have to use the terms "electric field" and "magnetic field" as if they were some magical force is the clue to this. The action of gravity is no different, though.

As Engineers, we don't always need to fully understand the science (although we need a good appreciation of it). What we do need to be able to do is understand the limitations of any models or concepts we use - that is, the boundaries between which the models continue to be predictable, and outside of which a result is not guaranteed.

Regardless of what electrons and other charged particles are (and are not), the phenomenon of electricity and how it transfers energy in a circuit or semiconductor is still not fully known.

'known' is not however the same as 'understood', and it can be a bit of a philosophical point, for examples semiconductors are extremely well understood in the sense we can calculate, predict and then make devices that perform extremely close  to those theoretical predictions. 

EM Fields may be a concept from the 1800s, but they are still doing very well in explaining the operation of the WiFi that links this computer to the network as I type, and the behaviour of the electrons and holes in the semiconductors within it.

The big thing the normal education process tends to imply that there are fixed facts, and that what is printed  in the text books is in some way the last word,  and then folk often struggle later when some improved understanding emerges.

Rather like 'Old MacDonald had a farm' where you have to sing back through all previous verses. any new model has to still explain  all the experimentally observed stuff covered by the previous model as well...  the previous is not 'wrong' in a ten commandments sort of way,  more 'incomplete', or 'not the best model for this sort of problem'

Mike.

Agreed, I think we are making the same point, in that we understand (within certain parameters) the observations we will make in given circumstances. But we must accept there are boundaries to that understanding.

For all we know, whenever we drive energy through an electrical circuit, we might be causing quantum destruction or quantum transformation events at a remote point in this universe (or another parallel one) ... we just may not have observed it yet! (I'm not, by the way, actually proposing this is the case, but using it as a thought-experiment example to illustrate bounds of knowledge.)