Charge conservation elementary charge on positive and negative particles must be extremely close to equal, differing by no more than a factor of 10 for the case of protons and electrons. Ordinary matter contains equal numbers of positive and negative particles, protons and electrons, in enormous quantities. If the elementary charge on the electron and proton were even slightly different, all matter would have a large electric charge and would be mutually repulsive. The best experimental tests of electric charge conservation are searches for particle decays that would be allowed if electric charge is not always conserved. No such decays have ever
Drude particle a changing local environment. Classical Drude particles are massless virtual sites carrying a partial electric charge, attached to individual atoms via a harmonic spring. The spring constant and relative partial charges on the atom and associated Drude particle determine its response to the local electrostatic field, serving as a proxy for the changing distribution of the electronic charge of the atom or molecule. However, this response is limited to a changing dipole moment. This response is not enough to model interactions in environments with large field gradients, which interact with higher order moments. The major computational cost of simulating classical