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Fundamentals
Principle of charge conservation
Like Coulomb's law, the principle of
charge conservation is a fundamental law of nature. According to this
principle, the charge of an isolated system cannot change. If an additional
positively charged particle appears within a system, a particle with a
negative charge of the same magnitude will be created at the same time;
thus, the principle of conservation of charge is maintained. In nature, a
pair of oppositely charged particles is created when high-energy radiation
interacts with matter; an electron and a positron are created in a process
known as pair production.
The smallest subdivision of the amount of charge that a particle can have is
the charge of one proton, +1.602 10-19 coulomb. The electron has a charge of
the same magnitude but opposite sign--i.e., -1.602 10-19 coulomb. An
ordinary flashlight battery delivers a current that provides a total charge
flow of approximately 5,000 coulomb, which corresponds to more than 1022
electrons, before it is exhausted.
Electric current is a measure of the
flow of charge, as, for example, charge flowing through a wire. The size of
the current is measured in amperes and symbolized by i. An ampere of current
represents the passage of one coulomb of charge per second, or 6.2 billion
billion electrons (6.2 1018 electrons) per second. A current is positive
when it is in the direction of the flow of positive charges; its direction
is opposite to the flow of negative charges.
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