Dirac's Wonderful Equation

Matter at a microscopic level can be defined as a set of molecules, which in turn are clusters of
atoms, which in turn are formed by other particles such as electrons (negative electrical
charge), protons (positive electrical charge) and neutrons (no electrical charge).
As previously said, just as matter is made up of particles, antimatter is made up of

antiparticles. And as you can imagine among the antiparticles, we find the antielectron or
positron (an electron with a positive electrical charge), the antiproton (a proton with a
negative electrical charge) and the antineutron.
The particle-antiparticle pairs also have a fascinating property. When a particle and its
corresponding antiparticle meet, collide, they annihilate, disappear, giving rise only to a flash
of light.
Dirac's wonderful equation
In order to know how the antimatter was discovered, we will go back at the beginning of the
decade of the 30's of the last century. The British physicist Paul Dirac tried to unify two of the
currents of physics, special relativity and quantum mechanics, in the same theoretical
framework describing an electron that moves at velocities close to light. And he got it. He
formulated what is now known as the Dirac equation.
The equation predicted something that seemed impossible, particles with negative energy.
Just as the equation x²=4 has two solutions (x=2 and x=-2), one of the solutions in the Dirac
equation seemed to indicate that particles could have less energy than the energy of rest.
Those solutions really pointed to a "sea"; of particles with lower energies. When a "normal";
particle jumps from a low energy level to a higher one, it leaves a gap in the low energy level
from which it comes. If this particle has a negative charge, let's say it's an electron, the hole it
leaves has a negative charge deficit, in other words, a positive charge, a positron! The
antiparticles appeared for the first time on a theoretical level. But where's the antimatter?
Shortly after Dirac postulated its existence, the first antiparticles were found. It was Carl D.
Anderson who found positrons from cosmic rays using a fog chamber. It is a gas that is ionized
at the passage of a particle so that the trajectory it has carried can be visualized. Anderson
used a magnetic field so that when a particle crossed the camera, its trajectory would curve
according to its electrical charge. Thus, an electron and its antiparticle, the positron, should
bend in opposite directions.
A few years later, in 1955, Emilio Segré and Owen Chamberlain discovered the antiproton and
the antineutron.
Antiparticles are created in a plethora of physical processes. The Earth is constantly being
bombarded with antiparticles (they are part of what is known as cosmic rays) produced in
different astrophysical processes. Due to the decay of the potassium-40, a banana produces
approximately one positron every 75 minutes, but in our body we can also find potassium-40,
that means that we ourselves are a source of antiparticles.
And where could we apply it?
Research is underway into the possibility of using antimatter in the medical sector in which it
could be used to measure the body's metabolic activity (positron emission tomography).
In addition, the use of antiprotons in cancer therapy is being studied. And it is that these
particles add an extra impulse of energy (more capacity of destruction) to particles that
bombard tumors. Although it has not yet been tested on human cells, this therapy has been
successfully tested on hamster cancer cells.
It is also promising in the field of energy production. When matter meets antimatter it
annihilates giving rise to a good amount of energy in the form of light. To give you an idea, a
gram of antimatter would release the amount of energy equivalent to a nuclear bomb.
Another of the uses of antimatter is the possibility of using it as fuel for spacecraft on trips to
other planets. Can you imagine reaching Mars in a single day? Or the moon in 8 minutes? Well,
this could only be achieved with 250 grams of antimatter.
But the biggest problem is the costs of antimatter production and storage. To produce one
gram of antimatter would require about 25,000 billion kilowatt hours of energy, thus raising
the cost above one billion dollars.

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Matter at a microscopic level can be defined as a set of molecules, which in turn are clusters of

As previously said, just as matter is made up of particles, antimatter is made up of

Dirac's wonderful equation

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