An electron and a proton have opposite charges. But how can we be so sure that they have equal amount of charge but opposite? Can't there be a slight difference?
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Because of the huge number of protons and electrons present in a handy-sized chunk of matter (like, for example, a baseball), if there were even a very tiny difference in the magnitude of the charge between an electron and a proton in a single atom, that difference would give rise to macroscopic effects that could easily be measured. Those effects do not exist even at the scale of things like planets, so we have high confidence that those charges are exactly opposite and equal.
niels nielsen
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