a question to ask

[sengas]

hi , while watching a programme on sky discovery channel l was left wondering to myself can anyone answer to me what is negative matter .

[NazNomad]

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


... or SAB

[daftgrandad]

A very good and instructive answer Naz,especially the second reference !

[Clanad]

I'm sure your question relates to "anti-matter" (I suppose it could be called negative matter).
Scientists of all persuasions (Mathmaticians, Physicists and Astrophysicists) propose that within 0.001 seconds following the initiation of the Big Bang Creation Event equal amounts of matter and anti-matter existed, but (roughly) for every billion particles (much smaller than atoms) of anti-matter that existed, a billion + 1 (one) particles of matter had been produced. Each collision of matter/anti-matter resulted in the cataclysmic destruction of both, save the one additional particle of matter. Over time, this additional particle came to dominate our known universe.
Additionally, some elements today decay and produce anti-matter particles... one of these is the lepton. Physicists believe that this decay process supports a fundamental law of physics - that for each new lepton that is produced there is a corresponding new antilepton.
Finally, physicists are now searching for very small differences between the properties of matter atoms and antimatter atoms by colliding atoms at near-light-speed aceleration. "This will help confirm or confound our understanding of the symmetry between matter and anti-matter" (Source: Antimatter Blog).

You may find this site understandable and interesting:

http://press.web.cern...demy/AM-travel00.html




Today, we (the scientists) see a universe made almost entirely of matter

[jake-the-peg]

I don't think these answers really answer the question of what anti-matter is.

To get at that we have to go back to the 1920's and a rather brilliant British theoretical physicist called Paul Dirac.

Many people have never heard of him because he was quite reclusive and hated publicity.

Anyway Dirac managed to combine Quantum Mechanics and Special Relativity in a particularly elegant equation (the Dirac equation)

This equation gives up two answers to a problem in the same way as the square root of 9 can be -3 and 3.

The Dirac equation gives us electrons with negative energy.

Dirac said that this meant there actually existed such things they were found two years later.

Later on the other anti-particles were discovered

You can read more on Cern's website

http://livefromcern.w...ory/AM-history01.html

[R1Geezer]

further to Dirac as jake points out, Hawking was later able to postulate the theory of negative mass falling into black holes ultimately causing them to evaporate. The other half of what would normally be an anihilating pair can be detected near the event horizon, later becomming known as Hawking radiation. In short particles of antimatter would have negative mass.

[R1Geezer]

there was a recent program on BBC4 called beautiful equaions, that covered the Dirac Equation and indeed had a fairly simple experiment to show the presence of antimatter, see here for some clips: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00wltbm