Answer to Question #185137 in Atomic and Nuclear Physics for Eunice Jayagan

Question

What do you think would happen to the universe that we know today if the charge of the electron becomes positive and the charge of the proton inside the nucleus becomes negative?

Answer 1

The Universe we know today consists of energy and matter. Talking about the matter we usually imagine electrically neutral molecules and atoms. Atoms are made of proton, neutron, and electron. There is, however, different type of atoms which are made of antiproton, antineutron, and antielectron. So when we change the charge, we change the particle to its antiparticle. (Antineutron is not equal to neutron because neutrons consist of smaller charged particles).

So, for the hydrogen atom, everything would be the same, it will have exactly the same energy levels as in Bohr's theory. In the first approximation, the energy levels of other nuclei would be the same. But! The neutrons also contribute to the nucleus properties (including spin), so if we consider more precise models of atoms, the energy level for (electron, proton, neutron) and (positron, antiproton, neutron) atoms will be different.

Overall, the Universe would look pretty close to what we see now.