Mark,
I've been focusing on mass variation, not radius - but your point that
textbook values for the other physical properties of protons are almost as
flakey, stands.
Mass of the proton, historically, was measured at different values in
different countries using different techniques, and even in modern times
with Penning traps, there are severe problems with the generally accepted
value. And since a 125 GeV Higgs isn't compatible with the Standard Model,
the reference frame is crumbling.
Believe it or not - there is NO model or hypothesis to predict the mass of a
proton! Many in fizzix assume there is, but they are wrong. (there are
dozens of efforts to do this, as in QCD - but none has gotten much traction
AFAIK.)
Since the mass cannot be derived elegantly from other known values, it is
taken on faith as a practical matter - but I should mention that this value
could be related to a beta-decay process and derived that way. However,
there are too many transformations to account for in any decay process such
as spin, kinetic energy, weak isospin, weak hypercharge, color charge,
bosons/gluon identity, not to mention: quark mass and neutrino mass. We need
a derivation which matches actual measurements. None exists.
Quark mass does not have a value which can be agreed on, so how can protons?
Look for a possible revision soon, due to Higgs.
BTW - the Standard Model mass of the proton is 1.672 621 637 x 10^ -27 kg,
or 938.272013 MeV, or 1.007 276 466 77 atomic mass units. Other values can
still be found in "official" sources and I'm not sure where this one comes
from, but who cares? It is wrong if the billions spent on the Higgs was
well-spent.
From: MarkI-ZeroPoint
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
