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The
first of these is antimatter, predicted by the British theoretical physicist
Dirac in 1928 when he was developing an equation to describe the behaviour of
the electron.
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Dirac
was a very shy man; you see it in his demeanour as he gives a lecture.
However the respect in which he is held is shown by his plaque in Westminster
Abbey, placed there in 1995, which is reputedly the only equation in the
Abbey.
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For
Dirac the equation was obvious; however he could only find a solution to it
describing the behaviour of the electron if there was also another solution
which seemed to describe something with negative energy. This solution he
eventually ascribed to the positron, the antiparticle of the electron.
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