Dan's+Chapter+11+Project

Paul A.M. Dirac

Who Was He?
 * Born in Bristol England, on August 8th, 190
 * A scientists that was studying how electrons act
 * Paul's father was an immigrant from St. Maurice
 * His mother was a librarian who worked at the Bristol Central Library
 * Paul had two siblings, a younger sister and an older brother
 * Felix, Paul's older brother committed suicide in March 1925, Paul once stated, "My parents were terribly distressed. I didn't know they cared so much. I never knew that parents were supposed to care for their children, but from then on I knew."
 * Discovered that electrons act as magnets and have north and south poles, or hemispheres
 * Experimented with his new idea and discovered anti-particles
 * Won the Noble Prize for his discovery of antimatter

Antiparticles
 * Every particle has a "partner" that has the opposite charge, but same mass
 * An antiparticle is formed when a force pushes on one of the hemispheres of an atom and makes it condense, then the atom's hemispheres collide and release wavelengths and energy
 * An antiparticle used to be called positron, named by Dirac
 * If an antiarticle and a regular particle combine, it forms an anti atom
 * Anti atoms have the same properties as their partner, but are short lived
 * When the two combine, they can release gamma rays and other photon particles

Antimatter
 * A antielectron and antiproton can combine just like electron and protons form together to form antihydrogen
 * You can do this for all the elements and thus, form antimatter
 * Scientists at a company called CERN created a antiproton decelerator, which helps to slow the movement of these particles, so that they can test and experiment with antiparticles/antimatter
 * At the exact second that the big-bang happened, there was equal amounts of matter and antimatter
 * During the big-bang, particles and antiparticles were forming pairs, but after one-billionth of a second, temperatures dropped so low that pairs could no longer be formed and matter took over

What Are They Used For
 * Antiparticles can be used for PET or positron emmission tomography
 * PET is using gamma rays to form three dimension images of body processes such as blood movement
 * Antimatter can be used to fuel space crafts or other rockets, but it is highly explosive if it comes into regular matter
 * Antimatter is also used in PET