Charge

By: Sharadindu Biswas (Spring 2018)

This topic covers the fundamental property of matter Charge.

The Main Idea

Charge is the fundamental physical property of matter that causes matter to experience a force when in an electromagnetic field. Charged objects can also create their own electric field and magnetic field. There are two types of electric charge, positive and negative. Charged particles repel particles with the same type of charge and attract oppositely charged particles ex. a positively charged particle repels other positively charged particles but attracts negatively charged particles. Charge is also an integral property in the formation of particles such as atoms as electrons are held in orbit around a nucleus by the attractive force of the positively charged protons. Charge is also fundamental to the formation of more complex molecules. Quantity of electric charge is measured in Coulombs (C) but is also often quantized in terms of the elementary charge (e) and in mathematical models charge is often denoted by the symbol Q. The elementary charge is the quantity of charge possessed by protons and electrons and the charge possessed by any other object is a multiple of the fundamental charge, although protons are made up of fractionally charged quarks those fractional charges are not observed in isolation.

A Mathematical Model

The elementary charge e has a value approximately equal to 1.602e-19 C

1 Coulomb is approximately equal to 6.242e18 e

Examples

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Connectedness

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History

Historically the concept of charge began with ancient greek philosophers who noticed when objects like amber were rubbed with fur that they could attract small objects and if they rubbed the amber long enough they could cause a spark. This was the furthest development on the idea of charge until the 1600s in Europe. In 1600 William Gilbert coined the words that would eventually become the english words electric and electricity. In 1660 the first electrostatic generator was invented. In 1675 Robert Boyle stated that electric attraction and repulsion could act across a vacuum. In the early 1700s Stephen Gray classified substances as conductors and insulators. In the 1800s Michael Faraday showed that static, current, and bioelectricity are all the consequence of a single kind of electricity appearing in polarities.

See also

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