Charged Particle Basics

What happens when an electron bumps into a proton?how did protons and electrons got their charge?? Does the charge of electron or proton gradually decrease with time just like how a magnet loses its magnetism?
- srikar (age 16)
hyderabad

When an electron bumps into a proton it may stick, forming a hydrogen atom, with the extra energy flying away as a photon. All electrons have the same charge. (Protons too.) It doesn't change with time. Each electron is also like a little magnet, and its magnetism doesn't change with time. The reason that a bar magnet can get weaker with time is that the directions of the magnetism of the different electrons in it can gradually get out of alignment. 

Something without charge would not be an electron. So converting your question about how they got their charge to one about how they came to exist, the answer is I don't know.

(published on 01/05/2016)