In the Kaluza theory (later Kaluza-Klein), it is related to the velocity of motion in a 4th spatial direction in the universe. A circular direction, with very small circumference. This is an idea which goes back to the Finnish theoretical physicist Gunnar Nordström in 1914, and has lingered on ever since. However, with no experimental confirmations.

I think that, the answer can be given by any fundamental physicists.

good question! Probably you should have asked this to Prof. C. P. Singh at Dept. Of Physics in BHU. The topic is still under research. Go through the section "NATURE OF ELECTRIC CHARGE" of the attached link.

http://www.academicjournals.org/journal/IJPS/article-full-text-pdf/0AED8AF45295

In the Kaluza theory (later Kaluza-Klein), it is related to the velocity of motion in a 4th spatial direction in the universe. A circular direction, with very small circumference. This is an idea which goes back to the Finnish theoretical physicist Gunnar Nordström in 1914, and has lingered on ever since. However, with no experimental confirmations.

@ Kåre Olaussen,

Could you please suggest a suitable reference regarding the idea you have mentioned above?

The Wikipedia article is a good starting point, with further references. A local person in Oslo who has been interested in these things is Jon Magne Leinaas. Carsten Lütken have worked in this field on advanced (string theory) level.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaluza–Klein_theory

Ludwig Boltzmann agreed with Hertz that Maxwell’s concepts of charge and current were “irremediably obscure”. In his lectures on Maxwell's theoryhe adopted Hertz’s view that electricity was a “thing of thought , serving to picture the integrals of certain equations”(quoted from : Bruce Hunt , The Maxwellians. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 2005).

> ... view that electricity was a “thing of thought ,

Yeah, it sure is. Just ask the janitor who tried to clean the small 10 kV -> 220 V transformer where I grew up. With the voltage on. Electricity is just a thing of thought! 

Thoughts are things of electricity, though.

Manoj,

Your question is good. Most physicists just accept the idea of charge and electric fields as a fundamental property of nature. They do not question whether charge can be conceptually understood as made of something more fundamental. I have worked on this question as part of a bigger project. The attached paper is mainly devoted to explaining this bigger project, but starting on page 13 the discussion turns to electric charge, electric fields and photons.  I propose a new constant of nature which converts the unit of electrical charge (Coulomb) into a distortion of spacetime.  Besides the scalar distortion produced by an electron, there is also a physical description which distinguishes between positive and negative charge.  A few points can be mentioned here, but the complete description requires both the attached paper and other publications. When the Coulomb force constant (1/4πεo) is converted to a property of spacetime using the proposed constant, it becomes Planck force (Fp = c4/G).  When the impedance of free space (Zo = 376.7 Ω) is converted, it becomes the impedance of spacetime Zs = c3/G which is the impedance encountered by gravitational waves.

The electric field generated by an electron has both a component oscillating at the electron’s Compton frequency and a non-oscillating component which is what we detect as the electric field.  However, the oscillating component is responsible for the energy density of the electric field and is necessary to generate the non-oscillating component. This model also shows the previously unrecognized connection between electric fields and gravity. There are other papers and a book on my ResearchGate page which extend the analysis to photons, particles and gravity.     

Chapter Spacetime Based Foundation of Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity

There are different approaches to answer this question. Laurent Nottale Has answered this question in his theory " Scale relativity and fractal space time" . You can read his articles or his book " Scale relativity and fractal space time: A new approach to unifying relativity and quantum mechanics"

You might be interested in research articles "Physics of the Electric Charge" or "Quantum Mechanics of the Electric Charge" by Andrzej Staruszkiewicz (present also here, on RG) who is studying the origin of charge for more than three decades... But we still have no clear answer to this intriguing question!

All particles are labeled by spacetime charges, mass and spin and by internal charges. The electron is a particle that has certain values of these charges, that's all, namely a certain mass, a certain spin and electric and weak charges, that have specific properties, described by the Standard Model. There's no sense in asking about the ``origin'' of its charge, any more than it would make sense of asking for the origin of its spin. One could ask how many kinds of leptons (particles that have electromagnetic and weak interactions only)  exist-and it turns out that this number is related to how many kinds of quarks exist. 

Stam, don't you find it astonishing that all elementary particles have the same value of charge?! e.g. the charges of proton and electron are identical to over 20 digits(!) although these particles are completely different in their nature. In the case of spin, we can explain this phenomenon by constructing representations of the spin group: the values of spin follow from a mathematical construction and therefore must be equal. What is the explanation of the precisely identical value of charges?

As you know the Great Geometer designed hydrogen atom to be neutral. Could not get stable configurations with the net charge on an atom. 

The reason the electric charge of the proton is exactly opposite that of the electron is a non-trivial consequence of the quantum properties of the Standard Model-more precisely of the electroweak part-and is well understood (the technical reason is that the weak interactions treat the two chiralities of quarks and leptons differently,which means that chiral symmetry is a local symmetry and its anomalies must be canceled). Any experiment, of course, will provide a finite bound on any measurement, but it is possible to understand this in a detailed way.

Putting the cart before the horses? All models are designed to reflect the basic fact that the atoms are neutral.

Meanwhile, Dirac showed that the existence of at least one magnetic monopole leads to the  quantization of charge. But that is another question. We don't know if at least one exists.

While magnetic monopoles haven't been observed-nor are predicted or required for the consistency of the Standard Model-quarks and leptons definitely have been; so the statement about the cancellation between the electric charge of leptons and those of quarks and their bound states is of experimental relevance and does have a theoretical explanation, that can be found in all textbooks on the Standard Model. 

That atoms remain electrically neutral, despite additional interactions of their constituents, is a non-trivial property of the electromagnetic, weak and strong interactions, that can be quantitatively understood and implies constraints on unknown particles. 

In my opinion the answer is gravity.

Consider a superfluid quantum space and gravity as the absorption of space's quanta effected by fermions (CFD simulations confirm that this works), where fermions are nothing else than topological defect of quantum space (superfluid vortices which attract the surrounding quanta). They have then to expel the absorbed quanta, to keep energy balance. If you assume that the absorbed quanta are expelled as virtual photons you get the electron's static electric field.  In the vortex, space's quanta would indeed cluster and form virtual photons.

Electromagnetism would be the output of gravity.

But what then about the fact that neutrons produce gravity but have no electric field? This theory says:  "they have to decay". And as a matter of fact, isolated neutrons decay in about 15 minutes. Furthermore other uncharged particles like neutral pion decay more quickly than their charged counterparts.

There a lot of mathematics and other physical phenomena which come out in favor of this hypothesis. See the attached file if you wish. Regards. Marco

Article A superfluid Theory of Everything? [outdated version]

A superfluid doesn't have general coordinate invariance-so its relevance as a consistent description of gravity seems doubtful from that alone. Not to mention that its  backreaction to any probe is different from that of gravity. While fluid excitations can be described, in a certain approximation, as the excitations that propagate on certain gravitational backgrounds, this analogy has limitations. 

I find an equally fascinating fundamental question is "what is the origin of the spin of the electron” . I suppose these questions are intimately related  and in some way related to the properties  of space time.

The spin of the electron-like its mass-is the value of the appropriate invariant of the Poincaré group: giving these two numbers labels a particle in spacetime. The charge refers to an internal symmetry (and that term's meaning is provided by the Coleman-Mandula theorem)  so, once more, the question gets shifted into that of describing the dynamics of such charges-what are their interactions and how do quantum effects modify them. For the electron, in particular, the answer is provided by the Standard Model: it is possible to describe, in a consistent way, particles that carry electric and weak charge, acquire mass in a certain way (through the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism) and possess spin 1/2. Such particles have properties consistent with those measured and it's possible to predict how unknown particles could affect them.   

Good question.

This is a good question. Gauge theories do address this issue. Conservation of electric charge is a direct consequence of  U(1)em gauge invariance. According to the Noether's theorem there is a link between symmetries and conservation laws. Because electric charge is conserved in all particle interactions it is a good idea to label elementary particle states with electric charge. Not only the electron, but all elementary fermions i.e. 6 quarks and 3 leptons are eigenstates of electric charge.

Next question is why electric charge is quantized ? There is no answer to this question at the level of the standard model according to which Q=T3L+Y. Even though   T3L assumes only discrete values, Y can take any continuous value. To remove this problem, usual practice is to embed U(1)em gauge group in a larger Lie group such as SU(5). Then hypercharge becomes one of the diagonal and traceless generators of SU(5). This gets rid of continuous values of Y.

I studied this subject and  I theorized in the order of the Non-Standard Model the "Theorem of Spin and Charge"  where I demonstrated charge of elementary particles is related to spin. Spin has mechanical nature and consequently electric charge has a mechanical origin. Besides because spin is quantized it follows that also electric charge is quantized. I wrote it for wholeness of information and therefore for researchers who are interested in this theoretical proposal I would want to advise the paper:

Article On Primary Physical Transformations of Elementary Particles:...

As I scanned the answers, I saw no mention of the hypothesis retained by Quantum Electrodynamics.

In 1942 Stückelberg proposed that positrons could be interpreted as electrons moving backwards along the time dimension.

This developed into positrons being identified as negative-energy waves propagating backward in time, and electrons being positive-energy waves moving forward in time.

Ref: Quantum Electrodynamics, Greiner and Reinhardt Springer, 1994 edition. Sections 1 and 2.

As for the relation between the unit charge of the electron and the opposite unit charge of the proton, it seems to me that the sum of the valence quarks (uud) of the proton directly explains its unit charge: (2/3+) + (2/3+) + (1/3-) = 1. The same for the neutron (ddu): (1/3-) + (1/3-) + (2/3+) = 0

Solutions cited by Michaud are based on two controversial concepts: movement backwards along dimension time and fractionary charges. With regards to those two concepts there is no experimental evidence and they are at the moment two controversial theoretical hypotheses. Quark model with fractionary charges besides has been proposed only for baryionic particles and not for electrons. Consequently those solutions give no answer  to the initial question: What is the origin of charge of electron?. Let me consider therefore it is still valid the solution that is proposed in the preceding paper based on the "Theorem of Spin and Charge".

Dear Daniele

Your are right that the nature and origin of the unit charge is currently unknown and that all solutions proposed are hypothetical.

The fractional charges of up and down quarks however are not hypothetical. They were discovered and measured at the SLAC facility during experiments carried out from 1966 to 1968 by scattering electrons on the inner components of protons and neutrons. The SLAC accelerator was the first providing enough energy to electrons for them to penetrate nucleons.

Dear André,

you didn't read my paper and consequently you can write the origin of charge is unknown. Besides the quark model isn't valid for electrons assuming that it is valid for hadrons. The solution proposed in that paper belongs to Quantum Relativistic Electrodynamics.

Dear Daniele

I did not read your paper for lack of time at the moment, but I will. The "quark model" is of course not valid for electrons, because they are different particles. Up and down quarks were found to be the only scatterable particles inside neucleons whose masses have been found to be slightly higher than that of electron. Between 1 and 5 MeV/c^2 for the up quark and between 3 and 10 MeV/c^2 for the down quark. Any hypothesized masses outside these limits run contrary to experimental evidence gathered at the SLAC facility.

Electrons, up quark and down quarks behave point-like in all scattering experiments, contrary to protons and neutrons, which supports the conclusion that all three particles are elementary, meaning that they are not made of smaller particles.

In Quantum Relativistic Electrodynamics other and different solutions are  considered and I report it to you for completeness of information.

For those interested, I forgot to give the reference where the experimentally confirmed parameters of the up and down quarks are given:

CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, page 11-6

A different perspective is that charge is not a "thing," but rather a property of a thing; much like length, time, and mass. I have found that charge is a dimension which arises from the Singularity. There are actually two types of charges and they are reciprocal to each other with the following relationship: 1 = e2 / (8pi a e.emax2) where e is the elementary electrostatic charge of modern physics, a is the fine structure associated with the electron, and e.emax2 is the magnetic charge of the electron. 

If the value of e is always expressed as its natural distributed form (e2) relative to single dimension mass as it was in the cgs system of units, then it is quite easy to arrive at a proper unification of the fundamental forces using simple Newtonian type force laws. The electrostatic charge, which is the same in both the electron and proton, actually is a charge associated with the quantum of space the electron occupies. The second quantity of charge, the magnetic charge, is the charge associated with the subatomic particle and is directly proportional to the mass of the subatomic particle. 

Modern physics has completely missed this second type of charge, and yet every electrical unit other than electrostatic charge and magnetic moment is a result of magnetic charge. For example, the units of potential, current, and resistance have dimensions of charge, but they are dimensions of magnetic charge, not electrostatic charge. The dimensions of charge in these units should be expressed as charge2 and not single dimension as currently used (resistance should actually be charge4).

I provide examples of calculations and applications of these concepts in my work. The symmetry that arises from using distributed charge is astounding and it allows for the geometric modeling of quantum space, quantum particles, and the more complex structures they construct. 

Specific to the topic of this thread, charge is a dimension. Charge is non-material, and yet it is very real. Length is very real, and yet it is also non-material. The length between two objects in space can be measured, and yet there is no physical thing there. The same goes for charge. The charge can be measured, but there is no physical thing there. The Universe we live in has metaphysical origins and a metaphysical foundation. It only starts to look physical when angular momentum comes into play. And I explain this in my work, too.

I would also point out that this equation 1 = e2 / (8pi a e.emax2) also applies to the proton and neutron, but with different fine structures and different magnetic charge quanta. And it is this basic equation that General Relativity reduces to:

e2 = 8pi (a e.emax2)

e2 has spherical geometry due to the distributed nature of electrostatic charge. The magnetic charge then has steradian geometry, which is coincident with the spin structure of the subatomic particle. The electrostatic charge belongs to space, and the magnetic charge belongs to matter. Thus the curvature of the space-time tensor is related to the curvature of the mass/energy (physical matter) tensor by the factor of 8pi.

This is a very simplified explanation for the more complete work. I am pointing it out to show that there are greater consequences to this simple observation than what is presented here.

Hi David

Your equation intrigues me.

How do you define e.emax^2 with respect to known constants and/or variables?

Hi Andre, 

e.emax2 is a product of the Planck angular momentum (h) and the conductance constant (Cd), which is derived from Coulomb's constant as below:

kc = c * Cd * u0 / e0

Coulomb's constant is equal to the speed of light times the conductance constant times the permeability constant divided by the permittivity constant. 

h * Cd = e.emax2

Essentially, magnetic charge is the result of particle angular momentum times the conductance of space. The greater the angular momentum of a subatomic particle, the greater its quantum magnetic charge is. The same relationship should also be true for more complex structures such as atoms and molecules, however, the net magnetic charge would be proportional to the net angular momentum. Bound subatomic particles could cancel each other's total angular momentum due to their geometrical arrangement and close proximity. This is completely falsifiable. 

I have been trying to convey this to people for years. It is so incredibly simple and so incredibly relevant to engineering that it should be easy to grasp and develop.

The biggest obstacle comes when scientists realize that this implies space is quantized, has geometry and charge, and can be manipulated just as easily as matter. This is the Aether that the mainstream claims does not exist, and yet it is essential for understanding the true nature of quantum existence. This understanding includes the two types of charges and the fact that all charge is distributed relative to a single dimension of mass.

Ok, your equation is sound.

The standard definition of alpha is alpha= e^2/(2 eps_0 h c)

Calculating alpha from your equation gives alpah = (e^2 c mu_0)/(2 h)

But since mu_0 = 1/(eps_0 c^2), the substituting for mu_0 in your equation gives back the standard definition of alpha. So your logics is ok.

Is there a specific purpose in having Cd being defined as a conductance constant?

Is there a specific reason for giving h Cd = h/(4 pi c mu_0) the name e.emax^2 ?

The name e.emax2 was something I chose because the e. portion identifies this as related to electrostatic charge, the emax portion shows that it is electromagnetic charge and its value is the maximum amount of charge the quanta can possess. Nothing else popped into my mind at that time and so I kept it.

The dimensions of Cd are those of conductance. I have continued doing research on the unit of conductance and find that it has interesting properties. It seems that conductance is a unit that applies to surfaces. It not only applies to physical matter, but it also appears to be a boundary between space and matter. That might sound odd at first, but the more conductance is investigated, the more this makes sense because electrons and protons are not solid, physical particles. The subatomic particles do not only possess angular momentum, they ARE angular momentum. Subatomic particle angular momentum is the first stage of existence between non-material properties and physical matter. Even mainstream scientists agree that electrons appear as clouds, rather than particles.

Conductance is also a unit used in the biological sciences to measure feelings. My current line of interest has been in exploring the mechanics of feeling relative to the unit of conductance and how information in the form of feeling is shared among organic and non-organic things. The conductance of space seems to play a part in this information exchange. But this is beyond the physics discussion at hand.

My dimensional analysis of the constants has led me to many interesting insights. Just as the two types of charges appear to result as a "split" in the Singularity, there is another important "split" as well. A non-material, force, which I call Gforce, appears along with its reciprocal of resonating strings of mass, which I believe is dark matter (the fact that this sounds like a string theory is coincidence).

The Gforce acts on the dimension of strong charge to produce quantum rotating magnetic fields, which is also the force constant for magnetic force. The Gforce acts on the dimension of mass to produce gravity, and the Gforce acts on the dimension of electrostatic charge to produce electrostatic force. The magnetic force is what produces the strong nuclear force, the Van der Waals force, and permanent magnetism. The different manifestations of magnetic force may seem like different phenomena, but this is because they occur at different scales of existence. 

I show the equation for the Gforce arising from the singularity in my work. It too is a simple equation, but it would require a lot of background information to show how it is derived to post it here. The bottom line, however, is that Gforce acting on strong charge produces Aether (space), and when Aether captures a string of dark matter, the dark matter becomes visible matter (the angular momentum that is the electron or proton). 

In my work, I also show the Casimir equation is, in fact, the strong charge equation for the electron (but I made a minor value correction because the Casimir equation was off by about 5%). I also show there is a similar strong charge equation for the proton, which explains how fusion is actually supposed to work. Fusion and the Casimir effect do not create virtual particles, they create real matter. We see the creation of physical matter in the data of Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactors, which generate more fuel (mass) than they consume. CERN has verified that Casimir generated photons are real photons, and not virtual photons. 

I know this all sounds "fantastic" but that is not my fault. The math is there and it all pans out. By seeing the two types of charges and understanding all charge is distributed relative to a single dimension of mass, the fundamental forces are easily unified and it becomes extremely easy to explain the entire Universe using Classical Mechanics.

If you want a "quick" introduction, you can read my paper, "A New Foundation for Physics." For a more detailed account of how these physics extend to into other areas and constants, you can read my book, "Secrets of the Aether." To see how easily the forces are unified, you can read my paper, "Calculations of the Unified Force Theory." 

Article A New Foundation for Physics

Book Secrets of the Aether

Article Calculations of the Unified Force Theory as Explained in the...

I read your paper on the foundation. Obviously deeply researched and self-consistent.

I agree on the following issues (not exhaustive):

- charge is not the "thing" but a property of the "thing"

- mass, given a quantity, is a measure of inertia (actually of omnidirectional inertia, from my observations)

- the fundamental unit of mass is the invariant mass of the electron 

I have a few questions.

You seem to put on the same footing electron, proton and neutron. Have you considered the possibility that contrary to electron, which is known to be elementary, proton and neutron have been confirmed at the SLAC facility to be complex particles whose internal structure involves two more elementary particles? uud for the proton and udd for the neutron.

"Elementary" meaning that the particle behaves point-like in all circumstances, which is not the case for protons and neutron, who have been verified to occupy measurable volumes.

How would your model deal with this?

Have you heard of the inverse cube law that has been verified to govern interaction between the magnetic aspect of electrons in an experiment carried out in 2014:

http://www.nature.com/articles/nature13403.epdf?referrer_access_token=yoC6RXrPyxwvQviChYrG0tRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0PdPJ4geER1fKVR1YXH8GThqECstdb6e48mZm0qQo2OMX_XYURkzBSUZCrxM8VipvnG8FofxB39P4lc-1UIKEO1

How would your model deal with this?

In your model, you oppose electrostatic to electromagnetic. Maxwell opposes electric to magnetic. How would your model reconcile this?

Manoj,   In our work,  the electron does not have an electric E-field,  that emanates from a “charge”,  even though it can exert an electric force on another electron, for example.  Thus, “charge” is a property rather than a physical object.  We are all aware that an electron carries a cylindrical B-field as it translates.  For purposes of this post,  such bound B-field can be considered the electron itself,  since the electron is similarly constructed in our work

The electric force is mobilized between two electrons,  for example,  when their cylindrical B-fields encounter each other.  This creates incremental changes in Bθ , relative to each field, in the zone of the encounter.  Thus, per Maxwell’s equations, each incremental change in Bθ  results in an incremental change in E.  The summation of these incremental changes in E in the zone of the encounter gives Coulomb’s electric force between the two electrons.  For more discussion on this, please see the link.

To understand the origin of charge of electron, we need to understand charge quantization - then the simplest nontrivial (lightest) charge is electron.

Charge quantization means that Gauss law cannot return any real charge, but only an integer multiplicity of e (or e/3). It can be done if using Gauss-Bonnet theorem in this place: which says that integral of curvature over a closed surface, returns topological charge inside - which has to be integer.

Hence interpreting curvature of some more fundamental field as electric field, and using standard Lagrangian for it, we can recreate electromagnetism with built in constraint for integer charge. Soliton approach also regularizes field of charge to finite energy. This is model of prof. Faber, e.g.: http://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1742-6596/361/1/012022/pdf

Slides: https://www.dropbox.com/s/aj6tu93n04rcgra/soliton.pdf