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A comment on Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could possibly imagine’. Parent comment

Re:Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could ... by a_gnostic on Wednesday February 14, 2024 @05:36PM (#39376535)
The number assigned to charge is an arbitrary convention. You could assign quarks with full numbered charges, instead of fractions, but you'd have to rework and recalculate all of physics and chemistry to get the new values right, and that's just too much work.
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Re:Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could ... by calamari4065 on Wednesday February 14, 2024 @06:10PM (#39376896)
No matter what arbitrary value you assign to the electric charge, quarks will always be 1/3 of that. That's the problem in question, not the absolute value.
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Re:Inside the proton, the ‘most complicated thing you could ... by twic on Wednesday February 14, 2024 @08:15PM (#39377951)
So quarks have a charge of 2 or -1, and a two of the former and one of the latter make a proton, which therefore has charge 3. An electron is elementary, but also has charge 3. The question is: that seems like a weird coincidence, how come it's like that?
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