Planck charge

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In physics, the Planck charge (q_P), is one of the base units in the system of natural units called Planck units. It is a quantity of electric charge defined in terms of fundamental physical constants.

The Planck charge is defined as:

coulombs,

where:

is the speed of light in the vacuum,

is Planck's constant,

is the reduced Planck constant,

is the permittivity of free space

is the elementary charge

= (137.03599911)⁻¹ is the fine structure constant.

The Planck charge is times greater than the elementary charge e carried by an electron.

The Gaussian cgs units are defined so that 4πε₀ = 1, in which case q_P has the following simple form:

See also

• Orders of magnitude (charge)