Video Transcript
The antiparticle of a particle
has the same blank as that particle but has an opposite blank.
Okay, so, this question is
testing our understanding of what an antiparticle is. So, to answer it, let’s look at
an example of an antiparticle. Let’s recall that the
antiparticle of an electron is known as a positron. And let’s also recall that the
mass of an electron, which is 9.1 times 10 to the power of negative 31
kilograms, is the same as the mass of a positron. And so, if the electron is our
particle and the positron is our antiparticle, we see that they have the same
mass. Hence, mass can be filled in
into our first blank.
Now let’s recall a second
property of electrons and positrons. Let’s recall that the charge on
an electron, which we’ll call 𝑞 subscript e⁻, is negative 1.6 times 10 to the
power of negative 19 coulombs because, remember, the electron is a negatively
charged particle. However, the charge on a
positron, 𝑞 subscript e⁺, is positive 1.6 times 10 to the power of negative 19
coulombs.
Therefore, both the electron
and the positron have the same magnitude of charge. But the positron is positively
charged, whereas the electron is negative. And hence, we can say that
these two particles, the electron and the positron, have opposite electric
charges. And we can fill electric charge
into our second blank.
And now we’ve used this
specific case of electrons and positrons to fill in the blanks in the
statement. But actually, this applies to
all particles and antiparticles. We can say that the
antiparticle of a particle has the same mass as that particle but has an
opposite electric charge.
