Physics: Proton radius smaller than believed, European scientists say

LA Times ^ | July 7, 2010 | Thomas H. Maugh II

[J Edgar]

are you saying you don't fit the standard model?
if so, please turn yourself in at the nearest government medical facility.

[UCANSEE2]

The peanut shape is produced by quarks traveling nearly at light speed and spinning the same direction as the proton.

[Mr. K]

In reality we were all sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkelsiezure, and you will all pay during the coming of the great white hankerchief

[UCANSEE2]

Actually, protons are shaped like soccer balls.

Do the neutrons look like this?

[Grizzled Bear]

Sophisticated measurements from experiments indicate the radius is 4% smaller than thought.

What? This cannot be true! If I'd have known this five minutes ago...never mind. We've got a really big problem but I think I can fix it. Can someone fetch me a #5 left handed monkeywrench, 13 rolls of duct tape and a purple gimp mask?

[smokingfrog]

It's all done with lasers and some very sophisticated equipment.

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[USNBandit]

Maybe protons are shrinking due to global warming, obviously George W. Bush’s fault.

[Grizzled Bear]

I’ll *never* be the same again.

Not even if we get you a new pair of fishnet stockings?

[Darth Tokarev]

All of us small blue creatures, with 50 arms each, and who invented deodorant before the wheel?

I have to dig out “Restaurant” when I get home.

[UCANSEE2]

But the amount of space it takes up is spherical because it moves at high speed. It’s actually a wave.

Take any point on a sphere, and roll the sphere along a path.

The trace of the point will make a wave on a chart.

Now, that has absolutely nothing to do this, of course.

[coloradan]

Wow! That contraption has TWO steering wheels!

[UCANSEE2]

and I’d be lying if I told you I understood it.

That remark alone proves you are more intelligent than most of us. And a darn sight more honest.

[UCANSEE2]

It is a well-known fact that it has a lot of surface tension.

Must be what makes everyone so uptight.

[UCANSEE2]

However, a proton is still larger than Obummer’s brain.

[Chaguito]

Hydrogen atom walks into a bar, says, “Gimme a beer, I’m kind of down. I lost my electron.” Bartender says, “Are you sure?” Hydrogen atom says, “I’m positive.”

Is this thing working?

[UCANSEE2]

Atomic spectroscopy measures transitions of the electrons between orbits in the atom, and does not depend on the details of structure of the proton.

More or less the same way they detect planets orbiting distant stars.

[UCANSEE2]

but a few quarks can still be any shape you want them to be.

That sounds strange.

[eclecticEel]

I think it best we not tell Al Gore about this.

[dangus]

I don’t think so. Not a sine wave, anyway. The point will move more slowly when it’s near the bottom, and more quickly near the top, resulting in something more like a series of hops than a sine wave.

[UCANSEE2]

Or, if the Rydberg constant is correct, the smaller size of a proton could mean the equations in QED theory will fail to work.

That's ok. We'll just make up a new theory.