Electric charge is a fundamental physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when placed in an electromagnetic field

. It exists in two types: positive and negative. Positive charge is carried by protons, and negative charge is carried by electrons, while neutrons have no charge

. Objects with like charges repel each other, and objects with opposite charges attract each other

. Electric charge is quantized, meaning it occurs in discrete natural units equal to the charge of an electron or proton, approximately ±1.6×10−19\pm 1.6\times 10^{-19}±1.6×10−19 coulombs

. The unit of electric charge is the coulomb (C), and one coulomb corresponds to the charge of about 6.24×10186.24\times 10^{18}6.24×1018 electrons

. Charge can be transferred between objects, for example, by rubbing materials together, which causes electrons to move from one object to another, creating static electricity

. An object with an excess of electrons is negatively charged, and one with a deficiency of electrons is positively charged

. Electric charge is a scalar quantity, meaning it has magnitude but no direction

. It is the basis for electric current, which is the flow of electric charge through a conductor

. In summary, electric charge is a basic property of matter responsible for electromagnetic interactions, existing as positive or negative, quantized in units of the electron charge, and measurable in coulombs