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Introduction

Consider this outline as an approach to defining ‘electric charge’:

• At one level of explanation of matter, matter consists of atoms.
• Electric charge is a property of matter manifesting in certain of the particle constituents of the atoms of matter.
• Studying atoms at the first level of their substructure, viz., the nucleus and surrounding electrons, can provide a fruitful starting point for explaining electric charge.

• As a starting point, note that:
  • Electrons can maintain their location surrounding and revolving about the nucleus only because a radial force of attraction on them exists directed toward the nucleus. Otherwise the electrons would fly off.

• Experiments reveal that:
  • The force of attraction between the nucleus and electrons greatly exceeds the gravitational force generated by the masses of the two groups of particles;
  • Therefore a force differing from the force of gravitation is operating, requiring a new designation;
    • For historical reasons discussed later, we designate the force an ‘electric force’.

...the electric force is approximately 42 orders of magnitude larger than the gravitational force. To see the enormity of this ratio, suppose that we represent the gravitational force by an arrow as long as a bacterium. How long would the length of the electric arrow be? Much larger than the height of a man; much taller than the Empire State Building; much larger than the Earth itself; much larger than the solar system; and much larger than the Milky Way. In fact, the electric arrow would be over 10 billion times larger than the "size" of the visible universe! That is why, when electrical forces are present, gravitational forces can be completely ignored.

• Experiments reveal also that:
  • The force of attraction occurs between the protons in the nucleus and the surrounding electrons, the two groups normally equal in number;
  • The magnitude of the electric force varies inversely with the square of the distance of separation over which the force operates.

• Experiments reveal also that:
  • The electric force between two spatially separate protons is one of repulsion rather than of attraction;
  • The electric force between two spatially separate electrons likewise is one of repulsion rather than of attraction;
  • When separated by the same distance, the magnitude of the electric force is the same between a proton and an electron, a proton and a proton, and an electron and an electron.

• Those experiments permit the conclusions that:
  • The electric force can be one either of attraction or repulsion;
  • Given that protons and electrons differ in mass by several orders of magnitude, the electric force does not depend on the masses of the interacting particles;
  • Therefore some quantitative property other than mass must generate and respond to the electric force between interacting particles;
    • call that property ‘electric charge’, and symbolize its unit of magnitude, q.
  • The ‘quality’ of the proton’s electric charge must differ from the ‘quality’ of the electron’s electric charge, otherwise protons and electrons could not generate and respond to either an attractive or repellent electric force depending on which interacts with which;
    • call the quality of the proton’s electric charge ‘positive’ and that of the electron’s ‘negative’, in keeping with historical designations arbitrarily assigned during the history of studies of electric phenomena on the macroscopic scale.

The convention was derived from Benjamin Franklin’s experiments. He rubbed a glass rod with silk and called the charges on the glass rod positive. He rubbed sealing wax with fur and called the charge on the sealing wax negative. Like charges repel and opposite charges attract each other.

• From the above discussion, we can formulate a provisional working definition of electric charge as follows:

Electric charge is a property of matter manifesting with an attribute of one or the other of two opposite extremes, arbitrarily referred to as positive and negative, a property of matter characteristic of certain of matter's constituent subatomic particles—specifically, protons (positive) and electrons (negative)—the property having the fundamental characteristic of producing and responding to a force of attraction between positive and negative particles, or of repulsion between positive and positive and between negative and negative particles, the force acting on spatially separated particles, that force, called the 'electric force', having a strength many orders of magnitude greater than that of the force of gravity, but like the gravitational, its strength falling in proportion to the square of the distance between the particles.

• Atoms of the chemical elements heavier than hydrogen...

Continue in this vein....

Tentative lede to student level treatment

Electric charge refers to a fundamental property of matter, a property upon which rests the numerous phenomena of electricity and electromagnetism, phenomena the particular the provenance of science and engineering.

Electric charge manifests itself, in one guise, as a property of the two earliest discovered constituents of the historically conceived homogeneous and indivisible atom, namely, the subatomic particles, electrons and protons, a property that endows an electron and a proton, though spatially separate, with the ability to attract each other with a force of attraction, called the electric force.

(PD) Diagram: Courtesy NASA/JPL-Caltech
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The electric force of attraction between the two particles differs from their gravitational force of attraction in that the magnitude of the electric force, for a given distance of separation of the two particles, is orders of magnitude greater than the force of gravitational attraction between them associated with their masses, greater by ~10⁴² fold. For that reason, the force of attraction between an electron and a proton does not depend on the masses of the two particles, whose gravitational force can be ignored as a contributor to the magnitude of the attractive force.

For historical reasons, discussed subsequently, protons are said to be positively charged—i.e., to carry a positive electric charge—electrons, to be negatively charged—i.e., to carry a negative electric charge.

A non-gravitationally-mediated force also exists between two spatially separate electrons, and between two spatially separate protons, but unlike the force of attraction between an electron and a proton, the force between two electrons is one of repulsion, as is the force between two protons. Thus the common expression, “like charges repel, unlike charges attract”.

The terms 'positive' and 'negative' arbitrarily serve as labels to distinguish the two 'polarities', or opposing extremes, observed in the electric charge of matter. 'Positivity' and 'negativity' do not themselves imply anything about the fundamental nature of electric charge. Other labels connoting bi-polarity, such as yin/yang, black/white, or bitter/sweet, could have served for labeling, and but for historical chance, protons could carry a negative electric charge, electrons, a positive charge.

Scientists had established much of the above by the early 20th century, as evidenced from the discussion in first few chapters of the 1907 still instructively readable classic, The Corpuscular Theory of Matter, by the discoverer of the electron, Joseph John Thomson (1856-1940)

Older version to be revised

Once you have established those basic ideas about electricity, "like charges repel and unlike charges attract", then you have the foundation for electricity and can build from there. —Electric Charge, Hyperphysics Online

In reference to the physics and chemistry of electricity, charge, or more specifically, electric charge, is a fundamental property of matter that causes matter having that property to generate and react to a force of attraction or repulsion to spatially separate matter that likewise manifests the property of electric charge.

Whatever constitutes electric charge constitutes it as two separate qualities, or polarities, assigned the names 'positive' and 'negative', or 'plus' and 'minus'. The attractive force between electrically charged entities arises between oppositely-charged entities—positive-negative—whereas the repulsive force arises between like-charged entities—positive-positive, or negative-negative.

Familiar examples of positively charged matter are protons, constituents of the nuclei of atoms, and familiar examples of negatively charged matter are electrons, constituents of atoms that surround their nuclei.

Given that the terms 'positive' and 'negative' serve only as labels to distinguish the two polarities observed in the electric charge of matter, 'positivity' and 'negativity' do not themselves imply anything about the fundamental nature of electric charge. Other labels connoting bi-polarity, such as yin/yang, black/white, or bitter/sweet, could serve for labeling.

The atoms that comprise the chemical elements of the periodic table, while consisting in part of the electrically charged particles, protons and electrons, do not themselves manifest an electric charge, because protons in the nuclei and the surrounding electrons are equal in number and quantity of charge, that balance ensuring that the atoms as a whole manifest no net electric charge—a state referred to as electrical neutrality.

Discovery and naming of electric charge

The ancient Greeks as far back as the beginning of the 6th century BCE, beginning with Thales of Miletus, had observed some of the simple phenomenology related to electric charge, Thales demonstrating it using the fossilized tree resin, amber, rubbed with cloth:

That little piece of amber rubbed by Thales, some 2,500 years ago, appeared then to be very insignificant. Had the world but known, it was fraught with vast possibilities; for, in point of fact, Thales had unconsciously rediscovered Aladdin's Wonderful Lamp. As he rubbed, the Genie of electricity appeared, and demanded, "What wouldst thou have? I am ready to obey thee as the slave of the lamp, I and the other slaves of the lamp." But the question remained unanswered. Neither Thales nor the witnesses of his experiment made any request nor asked its genii to aid them. They had ears, but they heard not, and so the genie disappeared, with all that he was both willing and able to do left undone. —E.J. Houston, 1905

In 600 B.C. Thales, erudite philosopher and astronomer in the thriving Ionian port of Miletus, observed the special qualities of the rare yellow orange amber, jewel-like in its hardness and transparency. If rubbed briskly with a cloth, Thales showed, amber seemed to come alive, causing light objects—like feathers, straw, or leaves—to fly toward it, cling, and then gently detach and float away. Amber was similar to a magnet in its qualities, yet it was not a lodestone. As a youth, Thales of Miletus had studied in the sacred Egyptian cities of Memphis and Thebes. Perhaps it was there, under the burning sun, that this earliest of Greek philosophers first learned from the priests about the prized amber, with its seeming possession of a soul.

Thales, it appears, believed amber an animate thing, something with soul.

The Greek word for amber, elektron, ultimately through Latin, electrum, gave rise to the English words, electrical and electric — words used to refer to the amber phenomenon before the publication of William Gilbert's landmark work, De magnete, in 1600, describing the results of the first systematic experimental studies of magnetic and electrical phenomena in Western science.

The word, charge, used in its electrical sense, was first used by Benjamin Franklin, in 1747, as a verb, and subsequently by him as adjective and noun:

Our spheres are fixed on iron axes, which is passed through them. At one and of the axis there is a small handle, with which you turn the sphere like a common grindstone. This we find very commodious, as the machine takes up little room, is portable, and may be enclosed in a tight box, when not in use. 'Tis true, the sphere does not turn so swift as when the great wheel is used, but swiftness we think of little importance, since a few turns will charge the phial, etc., sufficiently. [italics added]

Presumably, Franklin, who, in his many writings, frequently used the word, charge, and its variant forms (charging, charged, etc.), in its non-electrical sense, had in mind the word's sense of 'loading' or 'filling' something:

charge - ORIGIN: Middle English (in the general senses ‘to load’ and ‘a load’): from Old French charger (verb), charge (noun), from late Latin carricare, carcare ‘to load,’ from Latin carrus ‘wheeled vehicle.’...Examples: load or fill (a container, gun, etc.) to the full or proper extent: will you see to it that your glasses are charged? | fill or pervade (something) with a quality or emotion: the air was charged with menace.

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UPDATE What We Eat in America, NHANES 2007-2008 Mean Potassium Intakes. mg and mmoles per day All Individuals, 2 and over 15% reporting potassium supplement Sample Size, 8421 Food K, 2510 mg (SE 46.1) [64 mmoles] Supplement K, 14 mg (SE 1.5) [<1 mmole] Food + Supplement K, 2524 (SE 47.1) [65 mmoles] Food + Supplement K, % of IOM recommendation, 50% Males, 20 and over 21% reporting potassium supplement Sample Size, 2662 Food K, 3026 mg (SE 50.4) [77 mmoles] Supplement K, 22 (SE 1.8) [~1 mmole] Food + Supplement K, 3048 (SE 51.2) [78 mmoles] Food + Supplement K, % of IOM recommendation, 65% Females, 20 and over 17% reporting potassium supplement Sample Size, 2670 Food K, 2282 mg (SE 50.6) [58 mmoles] Supplement K, 16 (SE 2.4) [<1 mmole] —NHANES 2007-2008

Test3

Potassium Intake What We Eat in America 2005-2006 and 2007-2008
Years	Gender	Potassium mmol/day	% Of Recom- mended
2005-2006	Men	81	68
2005-2006	Women	61	50
2007-2008	Men	78	65
2007-2008	Women	58	50
Recommended “Adequate Intake”, 120 mmol/day, identical for men and women, and therefore not adjusted for differences in body size or lean body mass between men and women. Because the Food and Nutrition Board indicated that eating ordinary foods imposed no danger of consuming excess potassium except in certain potassium non-tolerant conditions, most Americans could likely achieve “adequate intakes” or more by doubling their potassium intake.

synbio

Somewhat more broadly, the American Chemical Society’s journal, ACS Synthetic Biology, states:

The journal is particularly interested in studies on the design and synthesis of new genetic circuits and gene products; computational methods in the design of systems; and integrative applied approaches to understanding disease and metabolism.

It lists the following topics as appropriate for a journal on synthetic biology:

Design and optimization of genetic systems Genetic circuit design and their principles for their organization into programs Computational methods to aid the design of genetic systems Experimental methods to quantify genetic parts, circuits, and metabolic fluxes Genetic parts libraries: their creation, analysis, and ontological representation Protein engineering including computational design Metabolic engineering and cellular manufacturing, including biomass conversion Natural product access, engineering, and production Creative and innovative applications of cellular programming Medical applications, tissue engineering, and the programming of therapeutic cells Minimal cell design and construction Genomics and genome replacement strategies Viral engineering Automated and robotic assembly platforms for synthetic biology DNA synthesis methodologies Metagenomics and synthetic metagenomic analysis Bioinformatics applied to gene discovery, chemoinformatics, and pathway construction Gene optimization Methods for genome-scale measurements of transcription and metabolomics Systems biology and methods to integrate multiple data sources in vitro and cell-free synthetic biology and molecular programming Nucleic acid engineering

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(CC) Diagram: Anthony Sebastian
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