Universe contains only one electron?

[lvlastermind]

One of my friends was telling me about this interesting idea. I've been looking and I couldn'r really find that much to read about it. Does anyone else know of this theory or have something that explains it in more depth?

 

[pallidin]

What did your friend tell you about this "theory"?

 

[VBPhysics]

Yeah I know what you are talking about. It was one of feynmann's ideas(kind of). when an electron and a positron come together they anihilate and form a gamma ray. Feynman said that both the elctron and positron involved in the annihilation had a past. before they came together (duh) and formed a gamma ray, which could then produce another electron positron pair. And because of this you can model a positron as an electron moving backwards(thermodynamically) in time. Then if you graph this situation(give me a sec to whip one up), you can see that the under this "electron moving backwards in time" idea the gamma ray acts as a kind of u turn sign to send the electron running backwards in time. allowing the electron to be in more than one place at the same time! Following this idea to its ultimate conclusion will yield the idea that it is possible for their to only be one electron in the universe.
Graph to follow.

 

[VBPhysics]

if you look at this bitmap it basically gets the theory across. Starting on the left with the blue line, and electron it moves forward in time until it sees a gamma ray(green), then it starts moving backwards in time(what we see as a positron) until it sees another gamma ray, and it then turns around and starts moving forward in time again. Theoretically this process can continue without end. The horizontal lines interecting the graph represents every location in space that the electron would be found at any given time, and since there is no brake system for the forward backward time motion the intersections could happen as many times as there are electrons in the universe, hence there may be only one electron in the universe.

 

[lvlastermind]

thanks for the clarification. Is there a website or a book that can expand on it?

 

[VBPhysics]

Not sure, This was a topic we discussed in one of my ohysics courses. you can probably find something if you look hard enough. I'll see if I can dig up the actual name of this idea.