What are positrons?

A positron is like a tiny ball that acts exactly like a regular ball but does opposite things.

Imagine you have two friends on a playground, one loves to push the swing forward, and the other always pulls it backward. A positron is like that second friend: it's kind of like an electron, which we often see in atoms, but instead of moving in one direction, it moves in the opposite direction.

Think about playing with marbles. If you roll a marble toward another one, they might bump into each other and move apart. A positron is like that second marble, if an electron (the first marble) comes rolling at it, the positron will react in a way that makes them both disappear, sort of like when two marbles crash together and then vanish.

Sometimes, inside big machines called particle accelerators, scientists make positrons by giving electrons a little extra energy. It’s like giving your friend on the playground more strength so they can pull the swing back even harder, and that hard pull is what creates a positron!

Positrons are real and used in science, but they’re also kind of like imaginary friends who do everything backwards.