Antiparticle - Dirac's Hypothesis, Other Antiparticles, Antimatter, Antiparticles And Cosmology
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An antiparticle is a subatomic particle identical with more familiar subatomic particles such as electrons or protons, but with the opposite electrical charge or, in the case of uncharged particles, the opposite magnetic moment. For example, an antielectron (also known as a positron) is identical with the more familiar electron, except that the former carries a single unit of positive electrical charge rather than a single unit of negative electrical charge. Antiparticles are not considered to be unusual or abnormal but are as fundamental a part of the natural world as are non-antiparticles. The main difference between the two classes of particles is that the world with which humans normally deal is constituted of protons, neutrons, and electrons rather than antiprotons, antineutrons, and antielectrons. To avoid suggesting that non-antiparticles are more "normal" than antiparticles, the name koinoparticle has been suggested for "ordinary" particles such as the proton, electron, and neutron.
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During the late 1920s, the British physicist Paul Dirac attempted to modify the currently accepted model of the atom by including in it the relativistic properties of electrons. As a result of his analysis, Dirac found that electrons should be expected to exist in two energy states, one positive and one negative. The concept of positive energy presents no problems, of course, but Dirac and other p…
The existence of the positron strongly suggested to scientists that other antiparticles might exist. If there was a positively-charged electron, they asked, why could there also not be a negatively-charged proton... the antiproton. The search for the antiproton took much longer than the search for the antielectron. In fact, it was not until 1955 that Emilio Segre and Owen Chamberlain were able to …
The Swedish physicist Hans Alfvén has studied in some detail the possible role of antiparticles in the creation of the universe. At first glance, one would assume that the number of koinoparticles and antiparticles produced during the big bang would be equal. As it happens, however, the way in which the two classes of particles decay is very slightly different, a difference that would have …
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