Explain the meaning of the statement electric charge of a body is quantised"

Explanation

The charge on any body can be expressed as an integral multiple of basic unit of charge, i.e: charge on one electron. This phenomena is called quantisation of electric charge. It can be written as ` q=+- n e.` where, n=1,2,3,.. is any integer, positive or negative and e is the basic unit of charge. Charge is said to be quantised because it can have only discrete values rather than any arbitrary value, i.e. free particle has no charge at all or a charge of +10 e or -6e but not a free particle with a charge of, say 3.57 e.