
Small proton charge radius from an electron–proton scattering experiment - bookofjoe
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1721-2
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sp332
More background information on the problem
[https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/physics-not-
broken-a...](https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/09/physics-not-broken-after-
all-were-close-to-resolving-proton-radius-puzzle/)

~~~
ta1234567890
> The electrons aren't really orbiting the nucleus; they are technically waves
> that take on particle-like properties when we do an experiment to determine
> their position. While orbiting an atom, they exist in a superposition of
> states, both particle and wave, with a wave function encompassing all the
> probabilities of its position at once. A measurement will collapse the wave
> function, giving us the electron's position

Physics will make more progress and faster than ever before, when it finally
embraces that _everything is a wave_ and that our perception is inseparable
from the world we perceive.

What we usually call particles/objects are just what things look like to us
when we sample reality at the sampling rate of our perception.

Our reality is basically the intersection/interaction of our perception and
the environment.

Here's a cool illustration of the concept:
[https://mobile.twitter.com/zonephysics/status/11318628388747...](https://mobile.twitter.com/zonephysics/status/1131862838874710016)

Every physics problem is a coordination problem. The coordination of different
waves/vibrations.

~~~
fsh
Human perception does not have a sampling rate. This is why our eyes don't
produce weird shutter speed effects like the one shown in the video. There is
no shutter and there are no frames.

The same is true for measurements in physics. Modern digital lab equipment may
use sampling, but this has nothing to do with the underlying physics. Putting
a photographic film behind a double slit "collapses" the wavefunction of the
photons going through without any sampling.

~~~
ganzuul
That carries the analogy a bit too far. While 'sampling rate' commonly implies
a discrete time interval it can also mean an average.

Wave function collapse isn't a physical process but instead a commitment to
not try to explain what's behind the equations. (And IMO consequently not
science. We don't just give up because it's hard.)

QFT meanwhile seems to say that samples is what you get when two fields
intersect. However, Bell inequality and decoherence further implies that there
is no such thing as an abstract 'sample'. The spread of quantum information
from an interaction is a subtle physical process.

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mmusson
I’m going to admit that I only got partway through the abstract when I was
distracted by the pleasing font used for the body text on the website
(HardingText-Regular-Web).

~~~
irrational
That is a beautiful font, but my googlefu must be lacking because I can't find
a reference to this font anywhere. I wonder if it is one they created in
house?

~~~
busyant
It's custom.
[https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03083-5](https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03083-5)

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carbocation
As a non-physicist, this is a spectacularly readable abstract and main text.
What a fine example of scientific writing.

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saagarjha
Related:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21438588](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21438588)

