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Antimatter

In the Face Book group:
The post was about antimatter and it is rarely observed; electrons and positrons are also mentioned.
My comment:

Perhaps I am being difficult but the above is not the simplest approach but the terminology seems incorrect. Matter is made up of atoms; each atom consists of a positive nucleus having 1 or more protons and 0 or more neutrons. This nucleus will be associated with some number of electrons depending on the atom's excitation. Electrons will leave when they attain sufficient energy (leaving an ion so the atom now exhibits a positive charge, so one might consider this a loss of equilibrium with an imbalance of charge. The nucleus can also associate with electrons near another nucleus to form a covalent bond.

The description above [in the post] implies the electron is the most important particle, used in numeric relationships. Oddly it is the nucleus that drives all behaviors of chemical reactions and it contains nearly all of the atom's mass.

in our part of the Universe, we NEVER observe antimatter. We might detect antiparticles during the brief time between their creation by a cosmic ray event and their subsequent destruction by an encounter with the ubiquitous normal subatomic particles.

Antiparticles are unable to combine into and persist as antimatter's atoms so none of those atoms are observed.


I see ' It remains to us to agree what is matter and what antimatter [which charge].'
Is there doubt on what is observed in our universe?

Perhaps I am wrong to distinguish between atoms in normal matter and infrequent antiparticles.

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