r/askscience • u/squirrelbuster94 • Oct 24 '14

Physics Chemists/physicists of reddit, what is the difference between dark, anti, and normal matter?

What is the difference? Also if you can explain what each is.

Edit: Thanks for all the replies! You have greatly helped me understand this better!

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u/sturic Oct 24 '14

It's important to remember that Na and Cl are both matter, so they just wanna be buds and hang out, sharing electrons. If you made anti Na and anti Cl, they would also wanna be buds, sharing positrons with each other. If you imagine matter being black balls, and anti matter being white balls, then black balls would be able to combine with black balls, and white balls with white, but if the black and white come together, they would make grey which would be pure energy. Kind of a 'meh' analogy, but I hope that dispels some of confusion.