Opposite charges attract

no such thing as an "opposite charge". it's just a naming convention basically.

protons exert an electric force on an electron in a direction towards themselves and vice versa.

the + / - makes it more convenient to keep track of everything without having to explicitly say electron or proton or whatever. also brainlets like you can understand it.

>>8454233
Because our observations say so.
Do the Feynman diagrams

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>>8454240
>protons exert an electric force on an electron in a direction towards themselves and vice versa.

But Why?

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>>8454240
>>8454256
Yeah you haven't actually answered why they exert an electric force on an electron. Maybe you're a brainlet and can't understand it either Mr Anon

>>8454256
If you aren't baiting, the serious answer is no one knows why. All we know is that electrons and protons exert "attractive" electrical forces on each other and how complex and deep of an answer you want depends on how well you know physics.

that is part of the reason why i hate physics.

>>8454256
The answer probably lies behind the "bedrock" of what we can prove through physical means.

>>8454233
Electrons can release virtual photons that collide with other electrons moving towards the future. Due to momentum, this causes the electrons to push away from each other.
Imagine two ice skaters skating in parallel in the same direction (that direction being the future). The start throwing snowballs at each other, and this causes them to veer off path a little bit away from each other. This is repulsion.
Attraction is more complicated because it assumes that the virtual photons are off the energy-momentum hyperbola. With the skater analogy, they throw a snowball at the other person but the momentum of that ball is going in the opposite direction of the throw. To conserve momentum the skater must move in the direction of the other skater.

Why oppositely charged particles tend to have this reverse momentum situation is beyond the scope of this post.

>>8454233
In the end it all boils down to: no one knows, that's the way we observe it

>>8454256
Thats not the for science to figure.
Just observe and say what things does.
Not why

>>8454233
To conserve local U(1) symmetry you must have that opposite charges attract.

Global U(1) symmetry means we cant measure the phase of an electrons wavefunctiuon directy, you can only measure the relative angle between the phases. so you can rotate all the wavefunctions by some rads and phisics remains the same (this ionfo is gotten from experiments, if you want to know why a U(1) symmetry and not U(2) or U(3), because then it would be the weak force or the string force).

If we then promote this symetry to a local one, meaning we rotate all the wavefunctions NOT by the same amount, but changing in some smooth way, we find there needs to be a force to cancel out some shit, thats the electromagnetic force (same argument gives you the weak and strong forces ass well). And it turns out that doing this math opposites attract and like repels.

>>8454233
A not shock-and-awe mathbomb explanation, but still quite scientific
https://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/

Why do electrons just orbit protons? Why are they attracted to them but they don't ever collide?

Does it have something to do with the uncertainty principle?

>>8455133
>Does it have something to do with the uncertainty principle?
indirectly, because the electron is a wavefunction, it will exist in spherical harmonics around the proton, so it cant spiral into the proton like a classical particle would. Even when the electron and proton are at nearly the same location, it may just pass through each other since its not hard balls, but only has some probability of interacting in away that would destroy one or both..

>>8455135
But how does that explain how positrons or anti-electrons can annihilate electrons?

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Use the extended version next time OP.

>>8455142
a positrons and electron can form bound states that are relatively stable, but they annihilate each other more often since they interact completely differently than a proton and electron, proton + electron must interact through the electromagnetic or weak force, electron + positron can interact directly since its the same field. The end products also matter, electron + positron usually produces only photons, so its a large amount of energy that changes, meaning it happens more often, a proton and electron will maybe produce a neutron, which actually needs extra energy from the electrons kinetic energy to happen so it will happen a lot less.

>>8455135
>because the electron is a wavefunction

lol what the fuck nigga how can a physical entity be a function hahaha functions are abstract concepts nigga like fuck y'all physicist be high and shit lmao