Chapter 317

In the chemistry and physics textbooks of nine-year compulsory education, basically one basic concept will be mentioned:

Positively charged particles are called cations, while electrons are negatively charged.

An electron has a negative charge and a proton has a positive charge. The electric quantity they carry is the smallest unit electric quantity.

The scientific term is elementary charge, with a value of 1.6 * 10 ^ - 19C.

For high school knowledge level, this concept is not a big mistake.

But actually

There are positively charged electrons in the world.

It is an antimatter.

Before talking about antimatter, we should pay attention to distinguish between antimatter and dark matter.

Many small partners easily confuse these two concepts.

In fact, antimatter and dark matter are two different concepts. Their similarities mainly lie in their names.

Loosely speaking, the relationship between the two is actually similar to that between people and pigs - that is, there is no relationship.

Antimatter is a macro concept. Antimatter is composed of antiparticles.

Antiparticle is a concept proposed in the development of quantum mechanics.

The Schrodinger equation in quantum mechanics is familiar to everyone - of course, the familiar name should be Schrodinger.

After all, Schrodinger's cat is already a stem out of the circle.

However, the Schrodinger equation is only applicable when the energy is relatively low, which has some limitations.

When the energy is high, the relativistic effect needs to be considered.

Later, a student named Dirac appeared in the history of physics. He considered the special theory of relativity.

He extended the Schrodinger equation to the case of high energy, and finally obtained the Dirac equation.

Dirac found that the equation has two solutions, corresponding to positive energy and negative energy respectively.

Positive energy is well understood:

From 0 to positive infinity, a particle can have any positive energy.

The energy corresponding to the negative energy solution is from 0 to negative infinity.

If the particle has a negative energy state, the electron may transition from a high energy state to a low energy state.

That is, radiate photons and lose energy.

This is antiparticle, or antimatter.

Dirac predicted the existence of a positron, which was later discovered by Anderson.

Finally, they both won the Nobel Prize. The positron is also a big thing discovered by mankind. The answer to the mystery has been revealed. Who guessed right?