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Solutions of the Dirac equation contained negative energy quantum states.

As a result, an electron could always radiate energy and fall into a negative energy state.

Even worse, it could keep radiating infinite amounts of energy because there were infinitely many negative energy states available.

To prevent this unphysical situation from happening, Dirac proposed that a " sea " of negative-energy electrons fills the universe, already occupying all of the lower-energy states so that, due to the Pauli exclusion principle, no other electron could fall into them.

Sometimes, however, one of these negative-energy particles could be lifted out of this Dirac sea to become a positive-energy particle.

But, when lifted out, it would leave behind a hole in the sea that would act exactly like a positive-energy electron with a reversed charge.

These he interpreted as " negative-energy electrons " and attempted to identify them with protons in his 1930 paper A Theory of Electrons and Protons However, these " negative-energy electrons " turned out to be positrons, and not protons.