Question

What is the charge of a single electron?

Answer 1

Hint : We know that electrons are responsible for the flow of current. Also when electrons are charged they allow the current to flow through them. So, we need to relate current, electrons and charge in order to find the solution of the given question.

Complete Step By Step Answer:
In an atom, the protons hold a positive charge, the neutrons a neutral charge and the electrons a negative charge. So long as it is not an ion the charge of this atom will always be zero overall, with the same amount of protons as electrons. So one singular electron with no proton to balance it out must have a negative charge equivalent to the number of electrons more than protons. Thus the overall charge must be $1-.$
An electron has a charge of $1-.$ In terms of coulombs; it is just the negative version of the elementary charge e. We know that Current is equal to Net flow of charge across per unit time.
$I=\dfrac{Q}{t}\Rightarrow 1A=\dfrac{1C}{1s}$
Since we know that The unit of current is Ampere, A. For charge it is Coulomb, C and for time is second, s. We also know that one Coulomb of charge contains $6\times {{10}^{18}}$ electrons.
Now, we need to put the value of one coulomb in equation (i).
$1A=\dfrac{6\times {{10}^{18}}}{1}$
$6\times {{10}^{18}}=1A\times 1s$
$\Rightarrow 1electron=\dfrac{1}{6\times {{10}^{18}}}$
$\Rightarrow 1e=1.6\times {{10}^{-19}}.$
A charge of an electron in coulombs is approximately equal to: $\Rightarrow {{e}^{-}}=-1.6\times {{10}^{-19}}~C$

Note :
We should remember that the smallest unit in which charge can be measured is in the terms of electron count. Also, charges follow the quantization rule. According to which $Q=ne$ , which indicates that charges can be only multiplied with integers (n).