Electric charges may be found everywhere in everything, not just in the world of science but also in everyday life. For example, touching dry hair with a ruler causes some hair strands to stand up because electric charges are everywhere in everything. In this article, we are going to study the basic definition of electric charge and about the properties of electric charge.

Definition of Electric Charge

The quantity of energy or electrons that are transferred from one body to another via various modes, such as conduction, induction, or other mechanisms is known as an electric charge. This is a basic explanation of an electric charge. Electric charges come in two different varieties i.e. positive and negative charges.

Nearly all types of bodies include charges. The only bodies that have no charges are those that are neutrally charged. A charge is represented by the letter "q," and the Coulomb is used to signify it. According to mathematics, a charge is equal to the number of electrons times the charge on one electron. The electric charge is calculated using

Q = ne

Properties of Electric charge

An electric charge also has a few other essential properties that flow from the notion of an electric charge. The following are the below mentioned basic properties of Electric charge

Charges are additive in nature
A charge is a conserved quantity
Quantization of charge

Now, we are going to study briefly about every property that is mentioned in the above list.

Charges are additive in nature

When we see point charges, electric charges have a scalar character. Charges can be points, but they are still positive and negative charges, it is vital to remember that. They act like scalars as a result, and we can just add them. As an illustration, let's look at a system with two charges, q1 and q2. The system's total charge will be equal to the algebraic sum of q1 and q2, or q1 + q2. For several charges in a system, the same is true. If a system has the following components: q1, q2, q3, q4,….qn, then the overall charge in the entire system will be equal to the value of

q1 + q2 + q3 + q4 + ……. + qn

A Charge is a Conserved Quantity

According to the conservation of charges, charges are neither produced nor depleted. An electric charge cannot be created or destroyed but can be moved from one body to another. The charges are consistently conserved in an isolated system.This suggests that although charge cannot be generated or destroyed, it may be moved from one body to another via techniques like induction and conduction.

Quantization of Charge

Electric charges generally described as the Integral multiple of a charge present on them in accordance with the quantization of electric charge. As a result, charge is a quantized quantity that may be expressed as integral multiples of the fundamental unit of charge (e – charge on one electron). If a body has a charge of q, it can be written as

q = ne

Here, "n" is any negative or positive integer, such as 1, 2, 3, -5, etc., and is not a fraction or an irrational number. The charge that an electron or proton carries is the fundamental unit of charge. By convention, we consider the charge on an electron to be negative and express it with "-e," whereas the charge on a proton is denoted by the letter "e."

Because of the low charge magnitude of particles, we express a particle's charge using micro or milli coulombs.

1 µC = 10-6 C
1 mC = 10-3 C

The quantization principle can be used to determine the number of protons or electrons in a body as well as the overall amount of charge that is present in a body. If a system has n1 electrons and n2 protons, then the overall charge will be equal to n2e - n1e.

Other Properties of Electric Charge

Charge is a scalar quantity.
Charges can move from one body to another and are transferrable.
Unlike charges attract one another while like charges repel one another.
Charge and mass are inextricably linked.

Chemistry Topics