Video Transcript
A composite particle is composed of
two up quarks and one down quark. What is the overall electrical
charge of this particle?
A quark is a type of fundamental
particle. A fundamental particle is a
particle that’s not made of smaller particles. In nature, quarks never exist on
their own. They combine to create other larger
particles. The composite particle in this
question is made of two up quarks and one down quark. The particle that’s made of two up
quarks and a down quark is the proton. The overall electrical charge of
the proton is positive one.
If we didn’t identify this
composite particle as the proton, we can still answer this question. We can calculate the overall
electrical charge of the particle using the charges of the quarks. The up quark has a charge of
positive two-thirds, and the down quark has a charge of negative one-third. If we add up the charges for the
quarks that make up the composite particle, we get positive one. So either way we solve this
question, the overall electrical charge of the composite particle is positive
one.
