3 ms·
>"the eventual creation and annihilation of pairs that may occur now and then is no creation or annihilation, but only a change of direction of moving particles
by theon144 12y ago
>"the eventual creation and annihilation of pairs that may occur now and then is no creation or annihilation, but only a change of direction of moving particles, from past to future, or from future to past."
Forgive my ignorance, but how does the fact that annihilation "produces" energy out of the two particles fit into this?
- one-more-minute 12y agoSince a photon is its own antiparticle, you might imagine that a photon and an electron "bounce" off of each other in time, and both reverse their directions. From our point of view it looks like two photons created and two electrons annihilated, or vice versa. Interesting idea at any rate.
- sukilot 12y agoOne electron and one positron, not two electrons.
- ThrustVectoring 12y agoMostly a guess: the energy produced by annihilation is the energy required to reverse the direction of the electron. Similarly, the energy require to create a pair is the same quantity.