[Lewis Thomson (OP)]

Donald has submitted this question to us.

"Is it necessary for the charge of an electron be exactly equal and opposite to a proton's charge? Electrons are lower mass than protons and do form from matter-antimatter pairs, but also from neutron decay. What process did the majority of electrons come from? How do we know?"

Leave your thoughts in the comments below...

[alancalverd]

It's not a question of necessity but of actuality. If the charges were not equal, atoms would be electrically charged and would behave differently from what we observe.

Not sure that electrons "form" m/a pairs - that's more a property of photons forming electron-positron pairs.