Why a nuclide can emit anti-particles (anti-electron, anti-proton, anti-neutron)

Question

I’m preparing for my Chem 2 final and this concept just confuses me.

If an electron is negatively charged, then how can it be positively charged? Wouldn’t that just make it a proton instead of an anti-electron? Does this mean that sub-atomic particles contain both negative and positive charges?

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Answer 1

You’re misunderstanding things a bit. Electrons are negatively charged and protons are positively charged, and both of them have their own separate anti-particles – positrons and anti-protons, respectively. These anti-particles are functionally identical to their normal counterparts outside of the charge.

An electron can’t become a proton because they are entirely different particles. You might be thinking of beta decay, where a neutron(±0) becomes a proton(+1) after it emits an electron(-1) and an antineutrino (±0). The overall charge remains balanced in that exchange.