Current physics defines charge as what causes electrical effects and electrical effects as caused by charge. This circular definition, that charge is what charged particles have, indicates that we don’t really understand it. In the standard model, charge is a self-evident property like mass, and the two are considered unrelated.
Quantum realism aims to derive physics from processing not just describe it so if mass is a processing overload that repeats, what is charge? In Figure 4.3, mass as positive processing that repeats endlessly leaves negative processing that never runs as the dotted lines show. The quantum network must keep its processing books in order, so let an electron’s charge be its constant processing deficit. If a processing overload that repeats is mass and the processing that repeatedly doesn’t run is charge, then charge is a necessary byproduct of matter.
This definition of charge fits its properties as processing remainder can:
1. Be positive or negative, as charge is.
2. Cancel its opposite, as opposite charges do.
3. Have a constant value as the electron repeatedly restarts, as an electron’s charge is.
If mass is the net processing run and charge the net processing not run, per node per cycle, then matter as a repeating quantum processing overload inevitably has mass and charge by the operation that creates it.