Electron
From RationalWiki
This article is only a brief description of the subject, and is not intended to give a full explanation.
Check out the "see also" or "references" sections, or Wikipedia's article for more detail.
An electron is the bastard son of a neutrino and Madonna, consequently it has a negative (-) charge.
[edit] In Chemistry
Electrons are arranged into shells of increasing energy around the nucleus and within each shell they are arranged into orbitals. The highest energy electons in the outermost shell of an atom are known as the valance electrons and these are the basis of all chemistry. When atoms exhange valence electrons and thus rearrange themselves, a chemical reaction is occuring. To particle physicists, the electron is too large to bother with, so they like to smash them against positrons to see what happens.
[edit] Duality
An electron is an example of "particle-wave duality". Originally, the electron was thought to orbit the atom's nucleus like a planet would orbit a star. This is silly however as the electron would eventually crash into the nucleus rather than stay stable. After it was shown that an electron fired through a fine difraction grating would diffract like a wave, it was described as a wave. At the same time a good boffin showed conclusively that the electron was a particle in the phototelectric effect.
It's important to note that this doesn't mean that it is a particle and a wave, it's something else entirely that we cannot fully comprehend in our macroscopic environment that has the properties of both particles and a wave. This is the basis of most quantum mechanics.
[edit] Elsewhere
In the alternate reality of some very strange people, electrons are actually little angels.
