I’ve tried reading up on it but my brain can’t comprehend the concept of matter having an opposite. Like… if it’s the opposite of matter then it just wouldn’t exist?
In: 9
It’s not the opposite of matter. It’s still matter. It has mass, for instance. A planet made of matter could orbit a star made of antimatter (in terms of the laws of gravity – it is highly unlikely that such a scenario would actually ever occur).
Antimatter is “anti” in that each type of “regular matter” particle has a “twin” so that, if the two came into contact with each other, they would annihilate each other. For instance, the anti-particle to the electron is called a “positron”. When an electron bumps into a positron, they annihilate each other and all their mass is converted into energy, in the form of two photons.
Importantly, **this only works for pairs of particles and their specific anti-particles**. If an electron bumps into an anti-neutron, they do not annihilate each other. It doesn’t matter (hehe) that one is matter and the other is antimatter. I hope that illustrates how there is nothing *generally* “opposite” about antimatter. It’s only particles and their specific anti-particles that are opposite in some of their properties (including their spin and their electric charge, for instance, if they have any).
Think of it like the positive and negative poles of magnets. One is, in some sense, the opposite of the other, and that determines how they interact. But both are still (parts of) magnets.
Latest Answers