Slashdot Mirror
The Proton Just Got Smaller
inflame writes "A new paper published in Nature has said that the proton may be smaller than we previously thought. The article states 'The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care. But the new measurements could mean that there is a gap in existing theories of quantum mechanics. "It's a very serious discrepancy," says Ingo Sick, a physicist at the University of Basel in Switzerland, who has tried to reconcile the finding with four decades of previous measurements. "There is really something seriously wrong someplace."' Would this indicate new physics if proven?"
... and now this! These scientists have no shame!
are they saying that the consequences of this information are, dare I say it, negative?
"His name was James Damore."
"'The difference is so infinitesimal that it might defy belief that anyone, even physicists, would care"
Does this sentence bother any one else? Just me?
Just remember, dear protons:
Size matters not. Look at me. Judge me by my size, do you? Hmm? Hmm. And well you should not. For my ally is Physics, and a powerful ally it is.
This paragraph from TFA has the most salient information:
4% sure does seem significant. But more interesting is that the measurement is thought to be much more precise because of the method of measurement. Doesn't it seem more likely that it's just not possible to get an accurate measurement with the electron -- like measuring a grape with a yardstick instead of a micrometer?
And of course, there's that stupid cat-in-a-box thing... you can't measure something without affecting it, so maybe muons interact in some strange (lol) way with protons that doesn't happen (or happens differently) with electrons. But as a non-physicist, even throwing those terms out there puts me far outside my league.
Of course, these more prosaic explanations don't lead to nearly as many cool sci-fi plot threads. FTL drive powered by a process that squeezes protons to black hole density, perhaps? That would be awesome. Or, perhaps the expansion of the universe is actually reducing the size of subatomic particles -- so in a few billion years, all matter will simply wink out of existence. Or, there's a time dilation effect as well, so that time drags longer and longer, especially on Mondays.
Stressed? Me? Of course not. Stress is what a rubber band feels before it breaks, silly.
In fact, the correction is about 2% (from 0.8768(69) fm to 0.84184(67)fm; one femtometer is 10^{-15} metres). Yes, the absolute magnitude of the difference is small compared to everyday things, but that's meaningless. More importantly, this difference is more than 5 standard deviations, so this is unlikely to have happened by chance.
That's actually the writing on paper bags on Algerian Airways.
this is why i never listen to scientist.
they're always lying, and making me pissed.
fucking protons, how do they work?
THL phish sticks
I shrunk the proton. The kids are fine, though.
Physicist here.
What's the diameter of the earth's magnetosphere?
About 10 Earth radii, defined as the point where the Earth's magnetic field is stronger than the solar wind and thus becomes the dominant force on electrical particles.
Similarly, we define the proton's radius in terms of its charge distribution. See how easy that is? It only takes a simple definition to make a word like 'size' meaningful.
And in the case of the proton is *is* meaningful, because you are incorrect about the proton being a singularity. The proton is composed of three quarks, each with their own charges and charge fields.
The quarks inside a proton are held together by strong force interactions. So any change in the measurable size of a proton is a change in what we know about the strong force. This is significant. Either the strong force is 4% stronger than our calculations predict, or there is another mechanism that is squeezing that proton's charge field down. Another force? Another particle? It'll be exciting to find out, now that we know there's something there to find.
The journalists who write about science often use bad, confusing, or just plain nonsensical terms. But it's almost always the journalists, and you can't really fault them for dumbing down their story to appeal to the largest group of readers. Whatever you do, don't blame the scientists. They are doing good work. It's not their fault if journalists relate it improperly, nor is it the scientists' fault if you don't understand the explanations.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
No, such a size is not defined. But it could be, if it were a useful measurement. It would have to be defined in relation to the gravitational fields in the neighborhood, which would make it around the same radius as the L1 Lagrange point. Voila, we have defined a gravitational 'size', and it can even be represented graphically.
Nothing exists unless someone has defined it; by the same token, anything can be defined in some way.
Genocide Man -- Life is funny. Death is funnier. Mass murder can be hilarious.
"For my ally is the Strong Nuclear Force, and a powerful ally it is."
Student: Is it true that the foundation of the universe is paradox?
Master: Well, yes and no.
As far as our particle accelerators & theory can tell, electrons, muons and quarks are all elementary particles with no internal structure. Internal structure is not necessary for particle decay---particle decay isn't really inside-parts spewing out, it is energy in one form of matter being allowed by laws of physics & quantum mechanics to transform into another state.
It would be extremely unlikely if muons had internal structure and electrons didn't.
The most likely scenario is (unfortunately) that there are some effects which actually are part of Standard Model physics, but they weren't included in the theoretical calculations. The theoretical calculations can get quite hairy and complex; perhaps something was approximated in a way that isn't actually as valid as originally believed or some other interaction which is hard to compute was ignored.
How exactly are you encoding arithmetic in "physics", as a formal theory? If the universe is finite, Godel's theorem doesn't apply.
After all, I am strangely colored.
The journalists who write about science often use bad, confusing, or just plain nonsensical terms. But it's almost always the journalists, and you can't really fault them for dumbing down their story to appeal to the largest group of readers.
Sure I can. Because it breaks the story, making it false. This confuses the readers further and makes the story have less value than not running the story at all. Yes I know the REAL job of newsies is to attract eyeballs to sell to advertisers. But they pay for the eyeballs by offering information, so "dumbing down" the story until it's worse-than-useless is outright fraud. (And it's a big part of why the old news media are dying.)
English is a very expressive language. It's usually possible to come up with wording that can get the meaning across just as clearly and just about as tersely. For instance, in this case the proton didn't just "get smaller" i.e. suddenly change size. "New measurement technique finds protons unexpectedly smaller." is my first attempt - and I'm NOT an expert in such composition. News writers are SUPPOSED to be experts in this, so there's no excuse for them.
Slashdot had an article and discussion on this - and science popularization - a few days ago.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
> oh well, i'm figuring that he's probably right seeing as science is just a bunch of atheistic dogma anyway...
Considering that Max Plank said:
"Eine neue wissenschaftliche Wahrheit pflegt sich nicht in der Weise durchzusetzen, daß ihre Gegner überzeugt werden und sich als belehrt erklären, sondern vielmehr dadurch, daß ihre Gegner allmählich aussterben und daß die heranwachsende Generation von vornherein mit der Wahrheit vertraut gemacht ist."
which is translated as
"A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it."
or paraphrased as the common English phrase:
"Truth never triumphs -- its opponents just die out."
"Science advances one funeral at a time."
You might be right on the dogma bit.
http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck
My name is Ingo Sick. You cast doubt on the Standard Model. Prepare to die!
There is another sentence that doesn't make sense either,
"Would this indicate new physics if proven?"
Physics doesn't get "proven", mathematics gets proven. It's akin to proving reality - it doesn't make sense. AFAIK, the cornerstone of physics is the experiment. If the experiment shows something, then that's it. There is no debate except maybe about the procedure employed. There is never argument if something is "real" - it's right there.
If the proton is shown to be smaller than what QM predicts, then the universe is basically showing that QM is not complete and there *must be* new physics and that's a *huge* result. Frankly, I don't think the submitter really understands either how physics works or how science works.
From the abstract,
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7303/full/nature09250.html
And that's a *huge* result. 5 standard deviations is not a little change - something doesn't add up.
Godel's theorem applies to mathematical formal systems that are sufficiently complex and powerful. 'Sufficiently' here is reached by formal systems far, far simpler and less powerful than the real number system. The only way Godel's theorem wouldn't apply to our models of the universe is if all the calculations used in all related physics could be encoded in a system much simpler than first year algebra or trig. You might get around it if you could describe all physics using only formulae that cannot under any circumstances what-so-ever generate an irrational number or any undefined value, that never require infinitesimals or infinities, and that can't even imply a potential need for imaginary numbers. Yes, Godel's theorem is that powerful.
Who is John Cabal?
God here. I just upgraded the universe server to PhysicsOS 1.1. Some users may notice a change in proton size due to the new quantum mechanics engine, but unless your working with the OS directly, this shouldn't be a problem for you.
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.