Suppose that you had an electrically charged stick. If you divided the stick in half, each half would have half the original charge. If you split each of these halves, each piece would have a quarter of the original charge. Can you keep on dividing the charge in this manner forever? If not, why not?

Question

Physics

Chance Harvey

14 August, 19:51

Suppose that you had an electrically charged stick. If you divided the stick in half, each half would have half the original charge. If you split each of these halves, each piece would have a quarter of the original charge. Can you keep on dividing the charge in this manner forever? If not, why not?

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Answers (1)

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Emiliano Phillips · Answer 1

No

Explanation:

No, because charge is quantized.

Electric charge is quantized, meaning that it occurs in discrete units.

So it can't continue to be divided, every accumulation of charge is an even multiple of this number (e=1.609*10^-19), and fractional charges cannot exist.