What is Charge? Understanding the Fundamental Property of Particles

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Charge is a fundamental property of particles, defined alongside mass and energy, and is crucial for understanding electromagnetic interactions. The discussion touches on theories like inflation and super-string theory, which attempt to explain mass and charge through particle interactions and vibrational patterns. There is uncertainty regarding the nature of charge, with questions raised about whether it could exist independently of particles, similar to the Higgs boson. The conversation also highlights the role of charge as a coupling constant that can vary with energy scales, leading to concepts like bare and dressed charge. Overall, charge is viewed as an essential and conserved quantity across all four fundamental interactions in nature.
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'Charge' is a property defined in particles. How do we say, for eg; 'Electron is negatively charged.' ?
What is Charge? :confused:
 
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weve talked about this before. when u tell me what mass and energy acctualy are I am going to tell you what charge is.

you simple have to exept that charge, mass and energy are propeties that particles have. we need a few axioms to describe everything
 
Yeah, i believe so...
Inflation theory suggests that Mass is a property defined by particle interactions with the Higgs boson..
Super-String theory says all these properties are defined by the vibrational patterns of the strings..
but, there is a bit of uncertainity here which is beyond physical knowledge..
 
thats just a theory, but then why do the higgs boson create the effect we feel as mass? can't then charge be a particle like the higgs boson? but then what makes it give the effect of a charge? is energy a particle as well that collect around things that have energy? and if the higgs boson effect it must exist different amount of higgs bosons around each object, cause the mass increase with the speed and the speed is relative to the observer. so for one observer it might be 5 billion higgs around a particle but then 50 billion for a observer that is at movement relative to the particle. and so on.
 
charge is just the coupling constant of the EM interaction. It expresses the strength of the EM interaction. Charge can change depending on what energy scale you look at the EM phenomena. This is why you have both bare charge and dressed (ie the charge we measure) charge. These concepts arise from perturbation theory in quantum field theory where a particle is surrounded by virtual particles that are a direct manifestation of the particle's interactions going on...

regards
marlon
 
If you can formulate a theory for HIGGS-LIKE field for charges, YOU WILL BE VERY VERY FAMOUS. INDEED, MORE FAMOUS THAN HIGGS!
 
samalkhaiat said:
If you can formulate a theory for HIGGS-LIKE field for charges, YOU WILL BE VERY VERY FAMOUS. INDEED, MORE FAMOUS THAN HIGGS!

What are you talking about ?

The Higgs system does apply on charges, you know ?

marlon
 
I have seen particle without charge, but I never seen or heard about charge without particle. Have you? Higgs mechanism is about generating mass through spontaneous symmetry breaking. "you start with massless particles you end up with massive ones"
Charges generating mechanism through Higgs? are you joking?
 
samalkhaiat said:
Charges generating mechanism through Higgs?

Who ever said that ?

I do not know where you got this but you must have misinterpreted somebody's words here. Again, i ask you what your point is ?

marlon
 
  • #10
A subtle, related thing. Suppose that you have two fermions of different charges but similar in all the other aspects. What does it happens with Pauli Principle?

My guess is that you can distinguish both particles and then it does not apply. But then, what does it happen in the limit of very weak coupling constants. Ie the particles have nominally different charge but such difference does not have dynamical effect. Does Pauli switch on? How?
 
  • #11
READ POST#4 AND YOUR POST #7. My point is that; charge is elementary physical concept. It is a coserved number in all four interactions of nature,this is because of the U(1) Gauge-invariance. The Higgs field itself has charged components. And as you correctly stated in post #5 it measures the strenth (coupling) of The EM interaction.
 

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