Electron

[crazy legs]

Why is an electron negative!

[fo3nix]

You mean, why does it have negative charge? One of life's many mysteries, I'm afraid. No-one really knows why.

[EDLEE]

By definition C.L. , Electron is only a name for a particle of matter of a certain size that has a negative charge. If the same size particle had a positive charge it wouldn't be an electron.( positron perhaps??)

[mibn2cweus]

By convention ionic current flows from "positive to negative" whereas electron current flows from "negative to positive". It could just as easily have been negative ion flow and positive electron flow but agreement required one description.

The underlying principle is that opposites attract and similar charges repel.

Ions are atoms lacking an electron necessary for stability and are attracted toward the opposite charge of an electron to become a neutrally charged atom having an equal number of protons and electrons. Ions are much heavier than electrons (since they are atoms) therefore most current flow is due to the movement of free electrons towards an ion (a positively charged atom).

[jake-the-peg]

An electron is a fundamental particle, it cannot be broken into other smaller ones.

The family of fundamental particles is called the standard model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Particle_ch art.jpg

Why the different particles have the particular properties that they do, charge, mass, etc. is still unknown.

We may though be close to finding out why it has the mass that it does.

There is a theoretical particle called the Higgs particle, not yet proven to exist but this particle would "give" mass to all the others.

Right now there is an experiment at Cern nearing completion that might just be able to find it if it exists.

I know this sounds hard to get to grips with - other people think so too - that's why in 1993 there was a competition for people to explain on 1 side of A4 "What is the Higgs boson and why do we want to find it?"

You can see the winners here:
http://public.web.cern.ch/Public/Content/Chapt ers/AboutCERN/CERNFuture/WhatLHC/WhatLHC-en.ht ml

[jake-the-peg]

Whoopsie - wrong link!

http://hepwww.ph.qmw.ac.uk/epp/higgs.html

[bluevern]

i no,iv asked it out loads of times keeps saying no,

[Gef]

Because it is not positive. That might sound like a stupid nswer but it is not. Many years ago scientists realised that electric charge came in two opposite types which attracted each other. For some reason they were called positive and negative but could just as easily have been called black and white. Anyway electrons were described as negative.

If I have misinterpreted your question I apologise.

[Gef]

Meant to say that mibn's answer hinted at this for the first three paragraphs but then just degenerated into rubbish.

[mibn2cweus]

Gef, Actually, my rubbish ended with the third paragraph. Nevertheless, if anyone would care to point out the error/s in any of my submissions I would be honoured to take out the trash.

As always, my word (or anyone elses) is only as good as the reader's understanding and each of us is ultimately, individually responsible for what we choose to believe.

. . . but don't just take my word for it . . .

[periwinkle]

while your talking about electrons why are atoms called the smallest when electrons are so much smaller

[mibn2cweus]

Elementary! My Dear Watson!