On Apr 20, 8:02 pm, Erik Max Francis <m...@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Not that CPT invariance means quite what you think it means anyway,
> evidently, since violations of CPT invariance do _not_ automatically
> present violations of charge conservation.
I'll go even farther - after all physical processes are complete, the
net charge of the reactants _is_ automatically still the same as that
of the products. My best guess is that Caldwell thinks that charge
conjugation symmetry is a physical process. My brain may be a bit
addled by flu right now, but I do not believe this to be so - you
can't just magically do something to turn a particle into an
antiparticle. All charge conjugation symmetry says is that all the
physics is the same if all the particles in an interaction are
replaced by their antiparticles. While charge conjugation symmetry is
known to be violated, this does not mean conservation of electric
charge is violated.
(For those who are curious, CPT symmetry means that all physics is the
same if all particles are changed to their antiparticles, while viewed
in a mirror with time running backwards - and it is believed that this
symmetry is always true).
Luke
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