It will be most interesting if they find through further measurements the proton radius depends on whether muons or electrons are used in the measurement.
harry On Fri, Mar 1, 2013 at 7:46 PM, MarkI-ZeroPoint <[email protected]> wrote: > This might tie in to what Jones has been saying in a number of vortex > postings... > > > > Is the radius of a proton wrong? > > http://phys.org/news/2013-02-textbook-radius-proton-wrong.html > > > > Apparently after 3 years now, they still cannot find an error in the data > which suggests that the textbooks are wrong about the proton radius... > > > > "Usually these updates are to clarify that the problem has been resolved and > that, once again, something innocuous was to blame for the unexpected > result. Updating three years later to say "it's still broken!" is something > of an oddity." > > > > "The announcements in question here are about a finding that the radius of > the proton differed from the "textbook" value by 4%. This doesn't sound like > much, but we thought we knew the radius to within 0.8%, making 4% sort of a > big deal. Physicists only count something as a "discovery" if it's five > "standard deviations" (5σ) significant. This measurement is now at 7σ and > more than ten times more precise than the previous value, with an error of > just 0.05%." > > > > "What made it all the more important though, was that the radius of the > proton wasn't some value that comes from reading it off a ruler. The theory > behind the textbook value is quantum electrodynamics (QED), probably the > most refined and accurate theory in all of physics." > > > > -Mark Iverson > >
