I understand that if you’re talking about a whole atom, a positive charge means it has lost electrons and a negative charge means it has gained electrons. However, what does charge mean when you’re talking about a single electron or proton? What about it physically makes it positive or negative?
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I’m afraid there isn’t a good answer to this. The only real answer to “what is charge?” is “it is”. Electric charge is just a fundamental property of matter. An electron has a charge of -1, and that’s that. Protons aren’t elementary particles though, they have a charge of +1 because its constituent particles – 2 up quarks and 1 down quark – have charges of +2/3 and -1/3 respectively. Why do they have those charges? They just do.
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