Electric charge the charge of an electron is negative, "−e", while that of a proton is positive, "+e". Charged particles whose charges have the same sign repel one another, and particles whose charges have different signs attract. Coulomb's law quantifies the electrostatic force between two particles by asserting that the force is proportional to the product of their charges, and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. The charge of an antiparticle equals that of the corresponding particle, but with opposite sign. The electric charge of a macroscopic object is the sum of the electric charges of the particles
Particle decay to further decay. The term is typically distinct from radioactive decay, in which an unstable atomic nucleus is transformed into a lighter nucleus accompanied by the emission of particles or radiation, although the two are conceptually similar and are often described using the same terminology. Particle decay is a Poisson process, and hence the probability that a particle survives for time "t" before decaying is given by an exponential distribution whose time constant depends on the particle's velocity: All data is from the Particle Data Group. Note that this section uses natural units, where formula_4 The lifetime of a particle