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Letter: Letters: Headache

Published 11 July 1992

From MARTIN McGRORY

This may seem a strange question from one who has been in electronics
all his working life, but what exactly is ‘charge’? Also, why do the electron
and the proton, apart from opposite polarity, have exactly the same quantity
of this thing called charge? No fatuous answers please! I have rubbed along
very well with my own version of the electron charge, but matching it with
three quarks in a nucleus gives me a headache.

The answer is: nobody knows – Ed

Martin McGrory Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire

Issue no. 1829 published 11 July 1992

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