Matter vs Anti-Matter

DublinWriter

If matter is physical, then anti-matter is ... ?

Podge_irl

Physical.

Anti-matter is essentially no different from matter. A positron is a perfectly physical particle as are all the anti-matter partners. The only reason you don't see them is because they annhilate so quickly because there is matter pretty much everywhere. The real question is why the universe is made up predominantly of matter and not anti-matter.

Professor_Fink

I would also add that a number of particles are their own anti-particle, so there isn't really a clear line dividing matter from anti-matter.

tolteq

lol. angels and demons

eagleye7

could i ask please frink what particles exactly your talking about i cant say ive ever heard about that.

Podge_irl

Photons, for one.

Professor_Fink

eagleye7 wrote: »

could i ask please frink what particles exactly your talking about i cant say ive ever heard about that.

Eta, K-short, K-long and pi_0 mesons.

Edited to add: Check out the Wikipedia page on mesons for a full list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesons#Types_of_Meson

eagleye7

ah thats really cool thanks i never knew that i only have leaving cert particle physics knowledge yet but thats pretty cool.

actually im just thinkin does a proton have an antiparticle, and if so whats its charge is it just made up of anti-quarks and still nuetral. just thnking cos i mean electron and positron are pretty much indistinguishable apart from the charge, granted its a lepton.

Podge_irl

eagleye7 wrote: »

actually im just thinkin does a proton have an antiparticle, and if so whats its charge is it just made up of anti-quarks and still nuetral. just thnking cos i mean electron and positron are pretty much indistinguishable apart from the charge, granted its a lepton.

An anti-proton is the anti-particle of a proton, made up of anti-quarks (2 anti-ups and an anti-down) and negative charge. I imagine you're thinking of the neutron, which has an anti-particle composed of anti-quarks but still neutral.

eagleye7

sorry yeah complete typo there i did mean a neutron. yeah i figured as much this kind of stuff was always the stuff i found most interesting in leaving cert physics its a pity i havent done any in college yet.

Professor_Fink

eagleye7 wrote: »

ah thats really cool thanks i never knew that i only have leaving cert particle physics knowledge yet but thats pretty cool.

actually im just thinkin does a proton have an antiparticle, and if so whats its charge is it just made up of anti-quarks and still nuetral. just thnking cos i mean electron and positron are pretty much indistinguishable apart from the charge, granted its a lepton.

For any particle, the anti particle is easy to work out, since each quark has an anti quark. Each anti-quark has essentially the same properties as the quark, but opposite charge and what essentially amounts to opposite colour for quantum chromodynamics purposes.

Protons have charge +1, and are made up out of to up quarks (charge +2/3 each) and one down quark (charge -1/3). The anti quark is then an anti-down (charge +1/3) and two anti-up quarks (charge -2/3 each), and so has charge -1.

Since baryons have 3 quarks, they can never be their own anti particle, nor can any charged particle. The neutron is charge neutral, but since it is composed of u-d-d, the anti neutronis a different particle with structure antiu- antid-antid.

usemyillusion12

"normal-matter" , "exotic-matter", "strange-matter" , "anti-matter" , the only unconfusing matter is " it doesnt-matter " !!

sorry i had to say it , its some lame joke i heard ages ago

i apologise once again ,

but the real question as Podge_irl said is why is there more actual matter ( i.e. the matter we and our universe is made of ) than anti-matter:

I think i read somewhere that at extreme temperatures like straight after the big bang , some particles act like there anti-particles due to the enormous amount of energy they had. This caused some of the anti-matter to act lke normal matter and thus it did not annihilate with its original counterpart, leaving a net amount of the matter we have now.

but i could be wrong on that, my memory is a bit foggy

VinnyTGM

So are black holes made up of anti-matter?

Podge_irl

VinnyTGM wrote: »

So are black holes made up of anti-matter?

No.

Hamsey

But I thought there wasn't any actual physical matter, only miniature electrical, magnetic or gravitational force fields.

Spear

Hamsey wrote: »

But I thought there wasn't any actual physical matter, only miniature electrical, magnetic or gravitational force fields.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_particle

Hamsey

Spear wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_particle

To paraphrase William of Ockam:

It is a mistake to postulate entities to cover up ignorance.

polishpaddy

Does that mean the whole universe is "connected" ?As in from particle to particle? Could one charge move to any point in the universe from particle to particle? Is everything in the universe connected to eachother?

Hamsey

What particles?

Particles imply matter. The contention is that that matter does not exist. Existence is electrical, magnetic and gravitational force fields.

And to reply to your question - it is interesting to think that they all interconnect, but how are you going to find out?

Professor_Fink

Hamsey wrote: »

To paraphrase William of Ockam:

It is a mistake to postulate entities to cover up ignorance.

Don't be fatuous.

Oh, and tell that to Wolfgang Pauli: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutrino#Proposal_of_neutrino_existence.2C_from_conservation_arguments

Professor_Fink

Hamsey wrote: »

Particles imply matter. The contention is that that matter does not exist. Existence is electrical, magnetic and gravitational force fields.

You're half right. Field theories provide the best description of the universe, but such field theories need to be quantized. Particles are simply perturbations in these quantum fields.

Jay P

polishpaddy wrote: »

Does that mean the whole universe is "connected" ?As in from particle to particle? Could one charge move to any point in the universe from particle to particle? Is everything in the universe connected to eachother?

I don't think so. Space is a vacuum isn't it? That implies there's nothing there at all, so there'd be no way for charges to travel...

Overblood

Hamsey wrote: »

But I thought there wasn't any actual physical matter, only miniature electrical, magnetic or gravitational force fields.

You may be mixing a few things up here. Could you be talking about string theory? Or maybe you´re thinking of e=mc2 which shows that matter and energy are the same thing? Anyway I´m pretty sure that matter exists. Matter is something that has mass and occupies space. I´m typing on a keyboard, which is matter. Therefore, matter exists, DOES IT NOT?

Professor_Fink

Overblood wrote: »

You may be mixing a few things up here. Could you be talking about string theory? Or maybe you´re thinking of e=mc2 which shows that matter and energy are the same thing? Anyway I´m pretty sure that matter exists. Matter is something that has mass and occupies space. I´m typing on a keyboard, which is matter. Therefore, matter exists, DOES IT NOT?

No, it's just quantum field theory that's leading to the confusion.