.
Anti-matter has positive charge - protons are just massive positrons
When I first read about matter vs antimatter, I realised it solved the problem of where everything came from. It arose out of nothingness. First quipped about by Schuster in 1898, theoretically predicted by Dirac in 1930, and first detected (positron) by Anderson in 1932, antimatter is the opposite of matter. By proposing its existence, the 'nothingness' that existed before the big bang has been conserved (phew!).
But then I read a disturbing thing. The only difference between the two is charge! "What?" I exclaimed. Isn't antimatter made from stuff with negative mass? Doesn't it have reversed gravity? If one watches a smattering of recent youtube videos on the topic, these seem to be the most common questions people want answered. It just seems, well wrong that the only point of distinction is the sign of the charge. OK, I'm open to new ideas. So...charge is more important than I had previously imagined. Fine. I'll craft a new theory which gives charge a leading role. Here goes-
Matter is stuff with a negative charge, while antimatter is stuff with a positive charge - p1
I see that you are frowning. Hmm. That's not a good sign. Still, got to expect a few 'speed humps' along the way. I'm reminded of Alfred Wegener, who first proposed Plate Tectonics in 1912. His suggestion seemed no more or less ridiculous than mine at the time. Look how Africa and South America seem to fit like pieces of a planetary jigsaw puzzle, he said. People laughed, under their hands. I mean, you got to be polite, right? Then he obtained rock samples from matching places on each coast. Look, he said, asking them to look at the etched samples under the geologist's microscope, they match! This time they laughed louder, and didn't even bother concealing their mirth and ridicule. This guy is a fruit loop, for SURE. But Wegener could see they weren't interested in doing real science, just in being part of a baying mob. Its fun to ridicule others, especially when it saves you having to think for yourself. Its a no-brainer, literally!
Well, its over a century later, Wegener's ideas are mainstream. You'd think science would have remembered how stupid it had been. Isn't anyone going to pipe up and say "Hey guys, not so fast with the negatory comments, remember Wegener and tectonics"? The answer is no. It seems that science has to be taught the same expensive, embarrassing, painful lesson each time the old stuff is replaced by the new stuff.
OK. Lets go [1]. The first problem with principle p1 above is protons. So protons are anti-matter? Sure. So where did the protons come from? They are positrons (charge is conserved) with mass added. Normally, matter and antimatter recombine with a rather large bang. In fact, a bang not unlike a nuclear bomb. So have we made any progress? Sure, in fact we've killed two birds with one stone. We don't need the strong nuclear force anymore, which was just someone's [2] suggestion to stop all their model nuclei from exploding. Instead, we can invoke the force which arises from the energy associated with the matter-antimatter interface/transformation.
That's one stone. What's the second? Well, someone needs to find all the missing antimatter. This is a problem called Baryon Conservation Violation. I propose that protons are anti-matter. Since protons and electrons mostly balance each other, I think thats a problem solved, don't you? [3].
I am asking you to consider the mass conversion of positrons into protons just after the big bang. Remember, I am suggesting that protons are antimatter, just like positrons, but with added mass [4].
Positron decay occurs during some kinds of radioactivity, as used in PET scanners. In Positron decay, protons turn into positrons and neutrons. The mass number (= protons + neutrons) stays the same, as in most radioactive processes, but a proton disappears and a neutron appears, reducing the atomic number by one, changing the element, of course.
Standing waves inside the nucleus
Now we turn our minds to the form that the matter-antimatter pairing might adopt. If standing waves form the basis of the wave-only theory, then it is not unreasonable to posit their existence inside the nucleus (see upper diagram in figure below) as well as in the more familiar location outside the nucleus (as per the lower diagram) -[5].
1. I'm aware of a rather ghost-like figure looking over my shoulder. Its (the ghost of) William of Occam. He's my SAO or simplicity assurance officer. Nice to see my taxes at work. Hi, Bill.
2. Eugene Wigner.
3. You still don't look that happy. Hmm. Oh well, we must press on. Turn that frown upside down, thats what our creepy next door neighbour, 'Mr. Grabby-Hands' used to tell us when we were kids.
4. The added mass can be computed from Einstein, s.t. m = E/c^2
5. The Mn atom was chosen at random, there is nothing special about it.