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1800-102-2727Electrons are one of the three fundamental particles of matter. J J Thomson discovered the particle in 1897. The particle is extremely light and occupies the shells around the nucleus. The electrons are crucial in the conductance of electrical energy, and there are various phenomena associated with these particles. However, apart from these phenomena, these particles hold some values crucial to their interaction and calculations associated with them. Here we will go through them.
Generally, electrons are smaller than atoms and are composed of a negative charge, represented as e-. Atoms can either have free electrons or electrons that are bound to the nucleus. A charge of an electron equals that of an elementary charge (e). If we remove the negative sign usually associated with an electron, then the elementary unit of charge equals 1.6 x 10-19 coulombs.
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Initially, physicists defined the mass of an electron as the mass equal to 1/1836 of a hydrogen atom or a proton. The value for the mass of an electron is thus substantially smaller. The charge of an electron is -1. It orbits the nucleus and has a mass that the physicists later quantified as 0.0005 times the atomic mass unit.
Electrons have an invariant mass defined as follows:
Mass of electron =
The electron volt is generally used in atomic and nuclear physics to describe how much energy electrons or charged particles gain during an increase in voltage.
An electron gains kinetic energy due to a one-volt potential difference (through a vacuum) when it accelerates from rest. eV stands for electron volt and is the amount of power gained by an electron while accelerating.
1 electron Volt =
As the unit electrical charge, an electron (e) possesses a charge we now regard as one. The negative polarity is associated with electrons. Electrons have the same charge but in the opposite polarity of holes or protons.
In order to quantify electric charge, physicists have expressed all charges as an extended unit of the basic unit of charge, e. Therefore, we can determine the total charge q on a body as follows:
q=ne
Where,
n is a positive integer.
An electron/proton carries a charge which is considered the fundamental charge. However, an electron has a negative polarity to that charge. Therefore, the electron charge is (-e) while the proton charge is (+e).
For an elementary charge, the value is equal to,
e = 1.6 x 10-19 C
Values like the elementary charge, electron mass, and value of an electron volt are important physical constants. Moreover, these constants are fundamental to the fields of modern physics and chemistry.
An object carrying n1 protons and n2 electrons will have the following total charge:
q= (n2 - n1)e
The SI unit for the measurement of charge is the coulomb.
In the CGS unit, we measure the charge using an electrostatic charge unit or one e.s.u. of charge.
One electromagnetic unit (emu) of charge is also common for measurement of charge.
1 emu = 3 x 108 esu of charge = 10 C
A charge can be added or subtracted in any manner, i.e., you can write the charge for a number of electrons/protons as follows:
+/- e for either single electron or proton. It can also mean the difference in the number of electrons and protons is one. The remaining particle will determine the sign of the charge. Similarly +/- 2e, +/- 3e, +/- 4e, etc show the net charge due to combination electrons or protons.
Every electron has a spin value of half. It can be negative or positive depending upon the anticlockwise or clockwise direction of spin.