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Old 09-02-2009, 11:07 AM   #15 (permalink)
TUDelftstudent
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I ran into this thread while I was searching for info on the following question:

"What would your net charge be if the proton and electron charges were 1 billionth part of their own charge apart?"

It was easy to calculate the amount of protons and neutrons in the human body, basically there is a 50-50 spread and they have approximately the same mass. The mass of electrons can be neglected as it is tiny.

Thinking about the physics behind it, if there is only a slight difference between charges, massive forces arise. That alone makes enough sense to defend the statement there is an equal number of protons, neutrons and electrons in the human body.

I in fact calculated what would happen if the charges were different by just 1 billionth of the electron charge (and the net charge wouldn't be 0). A human body of 75 kg would get a charge of 3 Coulomb.

Assuming Coulomb's law would work for two humans pretending to be particles, at a 1 metre distance there would be a force of 81,000,000 Newton. Enough to accelerate you to the moon in under a second.

Clearly it's not the case, there are approximately as many electrons as protons.
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