How does interpreting negative energy electrons as positive energy positrons solve the negative energy problem? How does change of “interpretation” without fixing the mathematics have such a profound impact on the underlying physics? (After all, don't we still interpret positrons and electrons as excitations of the same underlying spinor field?).
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$\begingroup$ Hi Dave - we prefer to have one question per post here, so I've removed your second one. Feel free to post it separately. $\endgroup$– David ZCommented Nov 18, 2014 at 5:15
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1 Answer
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It basically boils down to the term $e^{-\frac i\hbar E t}$, where the minus can either be included in the energy, making it negative, or into the time. But a negative charge moving backwards in time is exactly the same as a positive charge moving forwards in time, and that is much more sensible than negative energy.
answered Nov 18, 2014 at 7:15
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$\begingroup$ Interesting. I'll have to look up why charge conjugation reverses time. Great! $\endgroup$– DaveCommented Nov 18, 2014 at 7:25
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1$\begingroup$ @Dave you can use classical electrodynamics for that, when you swap the sign of all time derivatives and of all charge terms in the Maxwell equations, they remain the same. $\endgroup$ Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 7:28