Ernst Stueckelberg, and later Richard Feynman, proposed an interpretation of the positron as an electron moving backward in time, reinterpreting the negative-energy solutions of the Dirac equation. Electrons moving backward in time would have a positive electric charge. This time-reversal of anti-particles is required in modern quantum field theory, and is for example a component of how nucleons in atoms are held together with the nuclear force, via exchange of virtual mesons such as the pion. A meson is made up by an equal number of normal quarks and anti-quarks, and is thus simultaneously both emitted and absorbed.