[McKay (OP)]

Usually when someone is talking about virtual particles moving into and out of existence very, very fast, they say that the particles are matter and anti-matter, that annihilate each other.
I can accept "borrowing energy to create the particle pair", but shouldn't the pair be more like positive mass and negative mass- a region with the spacetime curvature in one direction and a region with the spacetime curvature in the other direction (higher dimension direction, of course) to cancel out in tho a flat nothingness? Gravity, space-time waves interfering with each other.

(hmm, a space-time curvature in the opposite direction would still be felt as as ordinary gravity, but cancel out with "normal" gravity when come together...)

If they ware particle and anti particle - there would be gamma rays everywhere. I dont see gamma rays annihilating me from the inside and outside.

[Bill S]

For a down to earth look at virtual particles, and particle/antiparticle annihilation Matt Strassler's blog is a good place to start.

http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/particleanti-particle-annihilation/

http://profmattstrassler.com/articles-and-posts/particle-physics-basics/virtual-particles-what-are-they/ 



 

[yor_on]

mass is mass.  A pair production is needed from conservation laws, and when particles of rest mass annihilate each other the transformation is made into energy as radiation. Mass(gravity) have only one sign, so there can be no 'negative mass', repelling gravity. And the way SpaceTime adapt to mass should be the same for both particles and 'anti particles', as long we're not talking 'very weird exotic materials' that btw does not exist, as far as I know.