Something Weird Happens When E = –mc²

Veritasium dives into Paul Dirac’s quest to make sense of negative-energy solutions in early quantum theory. After pointing out flaws in the Schrödinger equation, Dirac formulates his own relativistic wave equation—only to discover it predicts electrons with “negative” energy. Rather than dismiss them, he envisions a “sea” of filled negative-energy states, where a missing electron (a hole) behaves like a positively charged particle.

That leap of imagination leads directly to the prediction of the positron (the electron’s antimatter twin), later confirmed in experiments, and to the wild idea that antiparticles are just particles traveling backward in time. Dirac’s work not only unveiled the anti-electron and an entire “anti-world,” but also set the stage for today’s understanding of particle physics, antimatter, and the very nature of reality.

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