What is Antimatter?

Albert Einstein came up with the famous equation, E=mc^2 And thus defined mass as highly concentrated energy. With sufficiently high concentrations of energy, that energy can form matter. However when this matter is created it is balanced out by the creation of antimatter.

When matter and antimatter come into contact they annihilate each other and release large amounts of energy. A teaspoon of antimatter, reacting with matter, would run a car continuously for 100,000 years.

Not all particles have equivalent or rather, separate antiparticles. The electron and proton, as well as quarks, have antiparticles, such as the positron and antiproton because they have a charge to reverse. The neutron has an antiparticle because, although it has no charge, it has a magnetic moment to which the antineutron is opposite. The photon, however has only mass and directional velocity, thus there is no antiphoton.

Protons and neutrons also have a baryon number and their antiparticles have an equal but opposite baryon number.

Title Page - What is Antimatter? - The History of Antimatter - The Big Bang - The Imbalance - Antimatter: Now and Later - Bibliography

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