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Hi friends,
What is the need for the existence of an antiparticle for a particle?
What is the need for the existence of an antiparticle for a particle?
One of them is to preserve causality. (See e.g. Peskin and Schroeder Chapter 2)kiru said:Hi friends,
What is the need for the existence of an antiparticle for a particle?
That sounds like a philosophical rather than a scientific question. Physical theory predicts their existence and experiments confirm it. They aren't "needed".What is the need for the existence of an antiparticle for a particle?
This is very odd. I don't know what "experiment" you are claiming that preceded the prediction of antimatter, but even according to the site you are citing, it saysjhmar said:Dirac predicted the existence of the positron before it was confirmed by experiment.
First Dirac constructed a theory based on a number of unexplained experimental observations, the theory predicted the existance of positrons. Experiments precede prediction theory see-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/uk/2000/newsmakers/2094374.stm
It is commonly accepted that the Dirac equation was the first theoretical prediction for antimatter, in this case, the positron. There have been no experimental evidence, nor predictions, before that. What you are quoting only strenghten this view.But there was a conundrum. The equation had two solutions, one representing the electron, the other representing its opposite, a particle with negative energy and positive charge, that had never been seen or suspected before.
Yes, but there's two problems with using this to justify your idea (i) it contradicts the quote later in the article and (ii) Dirac was trying to solve for a different problem regarding the atom, and NOT trying to solve for the existence for some yet unpredicted entity.jhmar said:This is very odd. I don't know what "experiment" you are claiming that preceded the prediction of antimatter
The article begins with-
'Experiments had shown that classical physicists could not explain the behaviour of atoms'.
Dirac devise a mathematical theory to match these experiments and that theory predicted (numerically) anti-matter.