This is something that has long bothered me, and I have asked a few physicists and chemists and never gotten a very satisfying answer. Why are particles charged? And I'm not asking (and this is the answer you often get) why some molecule might be negatively charged because the answer to that is simply is that there was one more negatively charged particle than positively charged particle. That doesn't answer my question, however, of why there are charged particles at all?
So, on a fundamental level, what makes one particle charged and another one neutral.
For instance, protons and neutrons have almost exactly the same mass, which I'm assuming that means they have very similar internal compositions, yet one is positively charged and the other neutral. What is going on that makes these particles different?
On a similar note, and I'd really like to know this, how is it that a proton and an electron have exactly equal and opposite charge, yet an electron is about 1000 times less massive than a proton?
I have particular trouble with this question because if the answer were something along the lines of "particle X which composes protons all have partial positive charges of n amount..." I would just ask why particle X has any charge and we'd be in the same predicament.
I'm sure there is a satisfactory answer to my question, I just can't find it and don't know what resources are reliable or detailed enough to be satisfactory.
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