Something Weird Happens When E=-mc²

Veritasium dives into Paul Dirac’s radical leap from the Schrödinger and Klein–Gordon equations to his own relativistic wave equation, which surprisingly predicted negative-energy states—and with them, the existence of the positron (the first discovered antiparticle). Along the way, we get a whirlwind tour of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle, the odd notion of particles traveling backward in time, and the idea of an entire “anti-world” lurking behind the math.

The video also leans on insights from Graham Farmelo and Cumrun Vafa, plus archival treasures from Florida State and Caltech, to trace the real-world hunt for Dirac’s anti-electrons. Packed with expert interviews, chapter timestamps, and shout-outs to sponsors and the production crew, it’s a fun, informal look at how one equation reshaped our view of reality—and gave us antimatter.

Watch on YouTube