Hm. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say it's pedestrian. Well understood by theoretical physicists, perhaps. Inherently, though, it's still pretty damn interesting.
Interesting scientifically, sure, just like electrons and protons and Newtonian physics and all sorts of other things. But there's not much mystery to it. I agree with uvdiv, acconrad was almost certainly thinking dark matter/energy.
Or he's been misled by, like, every work of science fiction ever. They almost all portray it as the sort of mysterious, otherworldly stuff he's describing. I've known a lot of people who were kind of disappointed to learn that antiparticles are uncommon, but not that uncommon.
