/sci/ - Science & Math

>>6917725
>yin-yang

Yes, positive and negative charge are one entity. That is why physicists just speak of "charge". Only in high school do you really care about the "-" or "+". The notions of "+" and "-" are just artificial labels we put on things to make the math simpler. We didn't have to do that. It is just a "labeling" convention.

What we really have is a "quantity" we can measure. We can put the "0" anywhere we want, and we can "space the tick marks" anywhere ever we want.

>Is the total sum of charge in the universe is 0?

That is meaningless and trivial question. Because 0 is just a naming convention. We can put the 0 anywhere we want! We could measure all the charge and call it "1"!

An actual important question is; "is the total charge of the whole universe conserved?" Ie, if we measured it and called it "1", would it still be "1" later?

The answer is we really don't know. We end up getting this weird semi-related problem with charge when we start doing article physics. There is this thing called "C-symmetry" that doesn't seem to work the way it should! Charge gets all kinda of fucked up when dealing with the "weak nuclear force".