[Coda]

Originally Posted by Potironette

Oh woops, electrons are very different from protons and neutrons. Err, but what about protons and neutrons..? Do they matter? Are they part of the "volt"? Not that I know what's going on with the electron volt though :x

The only relevant part of the electron here is that it's a single unit of negative electrical charge. Everything else about it doesn't matter for this definition.

A volt... hmm. I guess you could describe a volt as the electrical equivalent of the potential energy stored in an object suspended above the ground. It takes work to pick the object up against gravity; it takes work to pull a negative charge away from a positive one (and the electron-volt measures this amount of work). In either case, you can turn that potential back into kinetic energy by allowing the particle to move freely.