Properties of Electric Charge

The quantity of energy or electrons that travel from one body to another by various modes like conduction, induction, or other specialised mechanisms is referred to as electric charge. This is a basic definition of an electric charge. Electric charges are divided into two categories. There are two types of charges: positive and negative.

Electric charges

When matter is held in an electric or magnetic field, it has an electric charge, which causes it to experience a force. An electric charge has an electric field related to it, and a moving electric charge produces a magnetic field. The electromagnetic field is a combination of electric and magnetic fields. The electromagnetic force, which is considered as the cornerstone of physics, is produced due to the interaction of electric and magnetic fields. Positive and negative electric charges are transported by charge carriers’ protons and electrons, respectively. Subatomic particles or matter particles are examples of several types of charges:

• Positively charged protons
• Negatively charged electrons
• Neutrons are neutral particles with no charge.

Properties of electric charge

It should be emphasised that point charges are charged bodies in a system of charges that are relatively small in comparison to the distance between them. All the charges dispersed across the object’s surface are thought to be concentrated at one location in such entities. We frequently deal with systems in which the influence of a large number of other systems must be considered. In such circumstances, we must add and subtract these charges from one another in order to determine the total effect. It is vital to examine the properties of point charges in order to simplify the processes required.

Additive property of electric charge:

When viewed as point charges, electric charges are scalar in nature. It’s worth noting that while charges can be point charges, they’re still positive and negative charges. If there are n number of charges within, the overall charge will equal the algebraic sum of the individual charges, according to the additive property of electric charges.

Conservation of charges:

Charges are neither created nor destroyed, according to the concept of charge conservation; they are simply transferred from one body to another. When two objects, one with a charge and the other without, come into contact with each other, the charge is transferred from the object with a charge to the object with no charge until the charge is evenly distributed throughout the entire system. There is no charge created or lost here; rather, it is transferred from one who has an excess of charge to the other who has a deficiency.

Quantization of charge:

All free charges are integral multiples of a basic specified unit, which we indicate by ‘e’, according to the principle of quantization of electric charge. As a result, a system’s charge can be expressed as, q=ne
Where n is an integer (zero, a positive or negative number) and e is the fundamental unit of charge (the charge carried by an electron or a proton). The value of e is -1.6×10^-19C.

Other properties of charge:

• It is a scalar quantity.
• It is transferable thus it can move from one body to the other.
• Charges that are similar repel each other, while charges that are dissimilar attract each other.
• Charge is inextricably linked to mass.

Conclusion

Electric charge is a fundamental feature of matter carried by some elementary particles that determines how they react to an electric or magnetic field. Positive and negative electric charge exists in discrete natural units and cannot be created or destroyed.