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Why every electron has the same charge?

Why wouldn't have? Every electron is the same, isn't it? Of course, they have the same charge. The case is not that simple. Ele...


Why wouldn't have? Every electron is the same, isn't it? Of course, they have the same charge. The case is not that simple.

Elemental particles live in the quantum world, in a world, which is very different from our everyday world. It is the world of probability and uncertainty. Particles can be here and there at the same time. What happens in this world, the results of the interactions are never sure. Many parameters of the quantum world are not predictable, and only get exact value if it happens. The quantum world can be precise and uncertain at the same time.

Nevertheless, some of the parameters in this world are precisely exact. We can measure it in any way, in any circumstances, in any environment, at any time, the result of the measurement is always the same. Like the electric charge of the electron is. How can anything in this fuzzy world be concrete?

Our knowledge about our world is far from complete. We do not know even basic things. Like what the electric charge really is. We know a lot about electricity. We know that the electric charge is an attribute of the matter related to specific particles. We can describe the electric behavior and its effects. We can build complex electronic machines, based on our knowledge. However, we do not know fundamentally the origin of the electric charge, how and where it comes from. It is a parameter for us, a quantity of quality, an attribute that the matter can possess.

Even if it comes from the fuzzy quantum world, it always comes by lumps, quantized, comes in the same, and exact quantities. How and why can it be concrete? The fundamental answer cannot be that it comes from the same particles. It would be just a distracting response to avoid the answer. How can the same type of particles in the quantum world always be the same in internal parameters, like having the same electric charge?

It is easy to say that every electron is the same. But how can it be? There is another answer to that question, a more heuristic one, like every electron, in fact, the same electron, only manifested in different instances. Still, this answer leads to more questions than explanations.

Easy to let to avoid the discomfort of finding the answer because we can find out the physical laws and we can use them without knowing their real fundaments. We do not need to understand why the laws of electricity are valid to build electronic machines. It is enough if we know how to apply them. However, if we could understand the origin of the physical laws, we would understand our physical world more fundamentally too. Why every electron has the same charge?

Maybe, because the electric charge is not a simple quantity of something. Perhaps the electric charge is a result of a physical process, a process, which only has meaning if it takes place in a whole. Such kind of processes can have exact quantities and only those determined values.

For example, if we want to draw a circle with a given radius, the drawing won't be a circle until we close the arc. And when the arc is closed, we determined its area right away, precisely. And not before that. Before that, the area has no meaning. Electric charge may have a similar origin. Electric charge may be originated from an underlying physical process, which can only be manifested if it takes place only in its completeness. And when it completes, it gets its specific values and can get only those values, and precisely those values. If the origin of the electric charge would be such a process, it could explain its exactness.

However, today we think, an electron is a point-like object. We can't see any size or structure of it. How can a point-like object have a process in it? Then it should have a structure too.

Well, the electron is a point-like object when we interact with it. The interaction always takes place in an exact location. This is why we see the electron as a point-like object. Contrary, for example, the electron in the atom behaves like a cloud. It is another not understood phenomenon of the quantum world, the particle-wave duality, but at least shows that the electron can occupy space, can occupy more than just a point. When we want to see where the electron in the atom is, so when we interact with it, we see it in an exact, however uncertain location, we see it in a point.

However, when we do not interact with the electron, when the electron is in its quantum equilibrium, so when the electron needs not to change its quantum state, the electron is a standing wave. The electron itself is a wave in the atom, present in the space with its wave structure. We can see this phenomenon even in the case of the free electron in the double-slit experience as well. We call it a probability wave because we describe the presence of the electron as how likely we can find (interact with) the electron at a given place.  However, even when we describe the electron as a mathematical structure, as a probability wave, the probability wave must have a real physical equivalence also.

How a particle can be a wave, we don't understand, although it clearly shows, the electron can be more than just a point, even can form a structure. And if the electron is more than just a point and can create a structure, it may consist of process or processes as well.

What process can a wave have? The hypothetical grid model of the particles, which was discussed in several thoughts, suggests a complex structure of the elemental particles. According to the grid model, elemental particles form wave-packets on the grid field by the synchronized vibration of the hypothetical grid particles. These wave-packets travel on the grid field with the grid field-specific speed, with the speed of the light. These are the bosons. In the appropriate circumstances, according to the grid model, these traveling wave-packets can form self-closed standing waves, loops. These closed-loop standing waves, because of self-closed wave structures, they can only move with less speed on the grid field than the grid field-specific speed. These are the fermions. So, according to the grid model, fermions, like the electron is, are closed-loop wave packets of the synchronized vibrating grid particles.

Because the grid field exactly determines what closed-loop wave packets are possible on the grid field, these closed-loop wave packets can only appear with specific properties and quantities too. If the grid model is a valid model for the particles, it can provide an answer, how and why the particles can have specific properties.

The grid model's structure and process approach of the particles still not an explanation what the electric charge is (Kaluza-Klein theory, which can fit into the grid model, may provide clues for that), yet at least can suggest an explanation why and how the particles can have specific properties in the quantum world. And may explain not just the exactness of the electric charge, but another unknown origin of an exact quantity, the mass as well.


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