Monday, May 14, 2012

 Arthur Schuster to Introduce Antimatter :


1- The term antimatter was first used by Arthur Schuster in two rather whimsical letters to Nature in 1898, in which he coined the term.

2- He hypothesized antiatoms, as well as whole antimatter solar systems, and discussed the possibility of matter and antimatter annihilating each other. 

3- Schuster's ideas were not a serious theoretical proposal, merely speculation, and like the previous ideas, differed from the modern concept of antimatter in that it possessed negative gravity .


The Modern Theory :

4- The modern theory of antimatter began in 1928, with a paper by Paul Dirac. 

5- Dirac realised that his relativistic version of the Schrödinger wave equation for electrons predicted the possibility of antielectrons. 

6- These were discovered by Carl D. Anderson in 1932 and named positrons (a contraction of "positive electrons").
7- Although Dirac did not himself use the term antimatter, its use follows on naturally enough from antielectrons, antiprotons, etc. 

8- A complete periodic table of antimatter was envisaged by Charles Janet in 1929


What is Antimatter ?

9- Antimatter is just nothing but a mere copy of ordinary matter we see with opposite charges.

10- For every type of matter particle we've found, there also exists a corresponding antimatter particle, or antiparticle.
How it looks like ?

11- Antiparticles look and behave just like their corresponding matter particles, except they have opposite charges.

12- For instance, a proton is electrically positive whereas an anti-proton is electrically negative.


How it behaves ?

13- It behaves just the same as matter —No difference

14- Gravity affects matter and antimatter the same way because gravity is not a charged property.

15- Matter particle has the same mass as its antiparticle.