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From: leon@hhb.UUCP (Leon Gordon)
Newsgroups: net.physics
Subject: Re: anti-energy
Message-ID: <162@hhb.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 25-May-84 15:02:29 EDT
Article-I.D.: hhb.162
Posted: Fri May 25 15:02:29 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 1-Jun-84 21:18:40 EDT
References: <1099@ihuxr.UUCP>  Perhaps some of the confusion here is that "anti-matter" is something
Organization: HHB-Softron, Mahwah, NJ
Lines: 11

of a misnomer.  An anti-particle is a particle which has a complementary
set of certain discrete quantum numbers as compared to the corresponding 
"ordinary" particle.  However, rest energy (i.e. - mass) is not defined in 
such a way as to ever have a negative value:  it is simply the ground-state
eigenvalue of the particle's Hamiltonian.  A particle can have negative
energy, of course, corresponding to a bound state; but the rest energy of
a free particle is always positive. Two particles comprise a particle-anti-
particle pair if they have the same rest energy, and complementary values
of the various discrete, conserved quantum numbers intrinsic to the particle
such as charge, iso-spin, etc.