Just wait 'till they figure out it isn't really there at all!
Posted on 07/07/2010 9:06:34 PM PDT by smokingfrog
However, a proton is still larger than Obummer’s brain.
Why do they assume that a proton is spherical?
What difference does it make, with the budget being over 3 trillion, they won’t get any funding anyway.
...er, make that “What difference does it make, with the deficit being over 3 trillion, they won’t get any funding anyway”
The proton finding won’t impact most people’s daily lives. But if it proves correct, it means something fundamental is wrong in particle physics.
It’s possible the smaller proton means the Rydberg constant hasn’t been correctly measured. This value describes the way light gets emitted from various elements—a key component of spectroscopy, which is used, for instance, to tell which kinds of elements exist in galaxies and the vast interstellar gas-and-dust clouds called nebulae.
Or, if the Rydberg constant is correct, the smaller size of a proton could mean the equations in QED theory will fail to work.
Like, duh, anyone could have seen that by just looking at a proton.
Who cares what the true radius is? Why don’t they just go with a consensus of leading physicists?
Because they’re physicists. Don’t you know the joke about a physicist designing a dog house? “Well, first we assumed the dog was a sphere...”
(By the way, even ellipses and prolate and oblate spheroids have radii.)
physics ping
Weird. What’s taken for a standard, or well-known established value, is at times in history .. found to be not so, because it is some measurement or value of a parameter rarely used in practice.
The shape of a proton depends on the speed of the quarks inside. The spherical shape is the shape most physicists expected to find. The peanut shape is produced by quarks traveling nearly at light speed and spinning the same direction as the proton.
omi-gawd!!!
This can’t happen!
This is horrible news! Just tragic!!
*sob*!
no not really. ha!
Better yet: why do they assume that the proton, as particle, has fixed physical dimensions? As a wave, its dimensions are zilch; as a particle, I’d expect them to fluctuate. Perhaps this 4% deficit is actually the “lower bound” measurement.
My protons are actually 4% BIGGER, that’s why
girls like me.
Actually, protons are shaped like soccer balls.
...and —most importantly— those aren’t quarks inside the protons and neutrons. They’re frosted lucky charms.
“Physicists might have to rethink what they know about, well, everything. “
Not a problem. According to the reports and articles I read, they do that about once a month.
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