Page "Antiparticle" Paragraph 9

Dirac was aware of the problem that his picture implied an infinite negative charge for the universe.

Dirac tried to argue that we would perceive this as the normal state of zero charge.

Another difficulty was the difference in masses of the electron and the proton.

Dirac tried to argue that this was due to the electromagnetic interactions with the sea, until Hermann Weyl proved that hole theory was completely symmetric between negative and positive charges.

Dirac also predicted a reaction + → +, where an electron and a proton annihilate to give two photons.

Robert Oppenheimer and Igor Tamm proved that this would cause ordinary matter to disappear too fast.

A year later, in 1931, Dirac modified his theory and postulated the positron, a new particle of the same mass as the electron.

The discovery of this particle the next year removed the last two objections to his theory.