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From: gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins)
Newsgroups: net.books,net.sf-lovers
Subject: Re: Procyon's Promise (really about matter/anti-matter)
Message-ID: <7373@watdaisy.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 18-Aug-85 00:39:03 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdaisy.7373
Posted: Sun Aug 18 00:39:03 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 20-Aug-85 06:07:02 EDT
References: <320@baylor.UUCP> <1491@shark.UUCP> <153@iitcs.UUCP> <205@drivax.UUCP>
Reply-To: gjerawlins@watdaisy.UUCP (Gregory J.E. Rawlins)
Distribution: net
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
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Xref: watmath net.books:2170 net.sf-lovers:9591
Summary: 

In article <205@drivax.UUCP> alan@drivax.UUCP (Alan Fargusson) writes:
>
>I have always been a little confused about matter/anti-matter stuff. Does
>anti-matter have negative mass? If it does then wouldn't a black hole made
>of anti-matter have negative mass?
>
>I'm a programmer jim, not a physicist. :-)
>-- 
>
>Alan Fargusson.
>
>{ ihnp4, amdahl, mot }!drivax!alan

    No, anti-matter is just "matter" made up of anti-particles.
Anti-particles are particles with the same mass as their (more
normal) counterparts but with opposite charge or magnetic moment.
The only reason a distinction is made is because "particles" are
much more prevalent than "anti-particles". For example, the
anti-particle of the electron is the positron (a particle with
the same mass as an electron but with positive charge) a particle
which caused much consternation when first discovered; as it
turns out all "particles" have corresponding "anti-particles", the
reason why they weren't discovered earlier is that in our neck of
the woods particles are the rule and whenever an anti-particle
is created it immediately combines with its corresponding
particle and vanishes in a puff of energy. 
    Particles with negative mass (whatever that means) are as of
now pure speculation.
    Hope this helps. ("Jim, I'm a programmer not an encyclopaedia!")
	(-: greg :-)
-- 
Gregory J.E. Rawlins, Department of Computer Science, U. Waterloo
gjerawlins%watdaisy@waterloo.csnet
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