elementary charge

American  

noun

Physics.

1. the unit of electric charge of which all free charges found in nature are integral multiples, equal to 1.602 × 10 −19 coulombs, the charge of the proton.

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Example Sentences

At Cal Tech, physicist Robert Millikan brought home the first of Southern California’s dozens of Nobel Prizes “for his work on the elementary charge of electricity and on the photoelectric effect.”

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 16, 2023

He was the institution’s first Nobel laureate — in physics in 1923, for establishing the elementary charge of the electron.

From Los Angeles Times • Jan. 15, 2021

The four will be based on Planck's constant, the elementary charge, the Boltzmann constant and the Avogadro constant, respectively.

From Scientific American • Oct. 29, 2018

The smallest observed unit of charge that can be isolated is the electron charge, also known as the elementary charge.

From Textbooks • Aug. 12, 2015

The smallest observed unit of charge that can be isolated is the electron charge, also known as the elementary charge.

From Textbooks • Aug. 12, 2015