🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1d7ag2INNi5q@agate.berkeley.edu> ted@physics1 (Emory F. Bunn) writes:
>In article <Nov.3.17.39.38.1992.15269@ruhets.rutgers.edu> bweiner@ruhets.rutgers.edu (Benjamin Weiner) writes:
>>dwr2560@zeus.tamu.edu (RING, DAVID WAYNE) writes:
>>[re antiparticles falling into black holes]
>>>While we're on the subject, this explanation of Hawking radiation bugs
>>>me because most of the radiation is photons.
>>
>>Yes!
>>So ... anyone care to give a slightly better explanation of
>>Hawking radiation?
>
>I'm not sure I understand the source of your malaise.  The standard
>explanation works just as well with photons as it does with electrons
>and positrons.

I think it may be because people think of the "particle" having positive
energy, and the "antiparticle" having negative energy.

This is a misapprehension: *both* particle and antiparticle have positive
energy, when they are *real*; it's the *virtual* particle (or antiparticle)
which has negative energy - this is why is has to be considered "virtual".
-- 

BCNU

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Dave (No. 23) | dsg@imp.co.uk | +44 753 516599 | <this space deliberately left>
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