

New findings about proton size could shake up physics as we know it - zain
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/80beats/2010/07/08/the-incredible-shrinking-proton-that-could-rattle-the-physics-world/

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jcdreads
These paywalls around scientific journal articles were infuriating when I was
a physics grad student, and they're even worse now that I don't have a
university account through which to view them.

In that spirit, here is the authors' rather fabulous website:

<https://muhy.web.psi.ch/wiki/index.php>

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hugh3
A better writeup, a little more technical than the Discover Magazine version
but far more comprehensible than the actual paper:

[http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7303/full/466195a...](http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v466/n7303/full/466195a.html)

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moultano
"To read this story in full you will need to login or make a payment (see
right)."

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andreyf
pssst <http://dl.dropbox.com/u/404957/flowers.pdf>

(but let's keep it between us)

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dmoney
What would be the consequences if this is accurate? What assumptions are based
on the size of a proton? What kind of technology was previously thought
impossible because protons were just too darn big? Because (as a non-
physicist) I can't think of anything.

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btilly
The heart of physics right now are two theories that disagree with each other.
One is Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which is about gravity. The
other is called the Standard Model, which is about quantum mechanics. (The
whole Higgs boson issue? That's about measuring the last unknown parameter in
the Standard Model, which is the mass of the Higgs boson.)

The hope of physicists is to be able to find a theory that combines the two.
Because they fundamentally disagree, we know that one or both, probably both,
are both somewhat wrong, but we don't have any idea how and where the theories
begin to fall apart. Therefore if we can find experiments which show problems,
then we can get insight on what the problems are with the theory, and
hopefully that will lead us to a better theory.

To draw a parallel, in the late 1800s it looked like physics was nearly done.
The big problems were solved. The remaining discrepancies were small. And of
what practical use was it to know more about the movement of light, why black
body radiation didn't look like what theory said it should, and whether there
was really such a thing as atoms? Yet the answers to those few small puzzles
lead to world changing discoveries from nuclear power to transistors.

Nobody can tell you what is left to discover. Nobody can guess the power of
unknown scientific theories. But through history, science has proved its worth
repeatedly in outside proportions. Isn't the hope that this could happen again
worth at least some resources?

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ThomPete
Yeah we don't even know if it makes sense to combine the two.

Human need for completeness is driving that, but we might find ourselves with
two models that don't need to be combined.

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btilly
We are trying to model one reality. Surely there must be a model that models
that reality better than either of our current models?

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teilo
The greatest thing a physicist (or any scientist) can say is, "Hmm, that's
funny...". It's when we find out that we were wrong that a panoply of new
discoveries open up before us. Exciting times.

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sajid
This is hard to believe. I'll wait until the experiment has been repeated
using muonic helium. Most likely, the researchers made a mistake in how they
applied QED in their calculation.

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JoeAltmaier
So, either a) the proton is a different, size, b) the muon is a different
weight, c) the 'electron shell' relationship to the proton size is not what
they think, d)...

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cldwalker
For the physics geeks: <http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/43128>

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ShardPhoenix
The article doesn't show any text for me (just the headline and white blank).

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plaidhat
Some of the comments are really interesting.

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melling
Why can't humans be a little more self aware? We know almost nothing. We're
still in the stone age and we need to work really hard, invest a lot more
money in education and research. It's not how far we've come, it's how far we
have to go.

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melling
Hmmm. I got voted down without any comments. No one can remember the big
debate 25 years ago when the US had to choose between the Hubble and the Super
Collider in Texas, which would have been bigger than the LHC? Hubble won, but
many argued that it was a waste of money, which turned out to be far from the
truth. The discoveries about to be made at CERN could have happened 2 decades
ago.

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JacobAldridge
_The discoveries about to be made at CERN could have happened 2 decades ago._

Not that I downvoted your original comment, but what has your follow up got to
do with self-awareness or being in the stone age?

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melling
I guess I was trying to convey the fact that there are a lot of big
discoveries waiting to be found. People seem to not put enough emphasis in
research and education in the US. The Hubble vs Super Collider debate many
years ago. Nasa is always underfunded, IMO. Seems like there is so much more
we could do.

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mootothemax
_Seems like there is so much more we could do_

Now all you need to do is mention curing world hunger, poverty and war and
you'll have your Miss America speech down to pat.

