Electron

From Chemistry

The electron is a subatomic particle that carries a negative electric charge. It has no known substructure and is believed to be a point particle. Electrons participate in gravitational, electromagnetic and weak interactions. Like its rest mass and elementary charge, the intrinsic angular momentum (or spin) of an electron has a constant value. In the collision of an electron and a positron, the electron's antiparticle, both are annihilated. An electron–positron pair can be produced from gamma ray photons with sufficient energy.

In many physical phenomena, such as electricity, magnetism, and thermal conductivity, electrons play an essential role. An electron generates a magnetic field while moving, and it is deflected by external magnetic fields. When an electron is accelerated, it can absorb or radiate energy in the form of photons. Electrons, together with atomic nuclei made of protons and neutrons, make up atoms. However, electrons contribute less than 0.06% to an atom's total mass. The attractive Coulomb force between an electron and a proton causes electrons to be bound into atoms. The exchange, sharing or interaction of the electrons in two or more atoms is the main cause of chemical bonding.

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Electron. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with Chemistry, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.