Book Title: Microcosmology Atom in Jain Philosophy and Modern Science
Author(s): Jethalal S Zaveri, Mahendramuni
Publisher: Jain Vishva Bharati
View full book text
________________
34
Microcosmoloz : Atom which is exactly like it but opposite in several major aspects. These counterparts were called antiparticles (equal mass but opposite charge). An anti-particle, despite, its name is a particle. Some particles have other particles as anti-particles. A few particles are their own anti- particles (like the photon).
Whenever a particle meets its anti-particle, they annihilate each other. When an electron meets a positron, for example, both of them disappear and in their place are created two photons which instantly depart from the scene at the speed of light. If there is sufficient energy, a pair of particle and anti-particle can be created conversely, they can be made to turn into pure energy by mutual annihilation. These processes of particle-creation and annihilation, predicted from Dirac's theory have since been observed millions of times by experiments.
HIGH-ENERGY PHYSICS
The most spectacular proof of relevance of relativity theory in particle physics was the creation of material particles from pure energy. Until now, the basic question was whether the matter can te divided again and again until one arrived at the smallest indivisible unit. In relativistic particle physics, the only way to further divide subatomic particles is to bang them together. When they collide with high energies, they do break up but the pieces are not smaller than the original particles, but particles of the same kind. We can never obtain smaller pieces because new particles are constantly created out of the energy involved in the process of breaking up. The subatomic particles are thus divisible but at the same time indestructible. Such a paradox is inevitable with the static view of matter composed of basic building blocks. But it disappears when particles are viewed as “processes', which involve energy appearing as their mass. Because of the high energy collision process, 'particle physics' is also called "high-energy physics'.
Most of the particles created by collisions have an extremely short life-less than a millionth of a second, after which they disintegrate into one of the three stable particles, viz, protons neutrons and electrons. In spite of this, they can be detected,
