Solved cryptogram
Electric charge comes in whole units. A single electron carries one indivisible portion.
Physics Facts, sourced to NIST.
What it means
You cannot have half an electron's worth of charge on an object, in the way you can have half a gram of sand. Charge is quantized, and everything you can hold carries some whole multiple of the electron's charge. Quarks are the exception that proves the rule: they carry thirds, and they are never found alone. The elementary charge now has an exact defined value and is what the ampere is built on.
The claim comes from NIST, and the page it comes from was read on 2026-08-27 to confirm it still says this.
This is not the kind of claim that goes out of date, which is why it was set as a puzzle rather than a fact with a shelf life.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 74 letters over 19 different ones, graded hard.
- SourceNIST
- CollectionPhysics Facts
- Difficultyhard
- Length74 letters, 19 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.