Look, we know it feels like everything's going off the rails right now, but think positive: The proton has a new radius The positively charged proton sitting inside the nuclei of atoms has a radius smaller than a trillionth of a millimeter, according to a paper published in Science on Thursday. Scientists have been scratching their heads over the size of the proton. Various methods used to measure the subatomic particle’s radius produced …
"This, article suggests that the classical electron radius may not be the correct way of measuring it."
It depends what you mean by "correct". Electrons, like all other fundamental particles, are thought to be point particles with zero physical size. Some theories suggest it might not be exactly zero, but instead something like the Planck length, but certainly far smaller than anything we can even dream of measuring in the foreseeable future. The classical radius of an electron isn't actually a measure of its physical size, but rather a sort of representative parameter that can be useful in some calculations. It gets its name from the fact that it shows up as the non-relativistic (ie. classical) limit of certain equations, such as calculating scattering cross-sections for low energy particles.
The proton, on the other hand, is a composite particle with a real, finite, physical size. The quarks and gluons inside are also thought to be point particles, but since they're separated from each other we can measure how much space the whole ensemble actually takes up. It's a little more complicated since, like atoms, there are the usual quantum probability clouds involved rather than nice little solid balls orbiting each other in a sensible manner, but depending on exactly how you define what it is you want to measure, there is definitely a real size there somewhere.
So it's not that the classical radius is not correct, it's just not measuring the same thing and so can't be sensibly compared. In the size talked about in this article, in the sense of what you'd get if you used a really, really small micrometer to measure them, protons are infinitely bigger than electrons because they actually have non-zero size. In terms of classical radius, the electron is much bigger since it scales with 1/m. However, since that means the classical proton radius is much smaller than its actual physical size, it's not a very useful parameter since other effects will always dominate.
I once provided a similar response to a question when on a C programming course many moons ago. In front of the class the instructor asked when I would use void main(), 'after 10 pints a dodgy curry' was my reply. I thought it was hilarious but only me and the instructor laughed!
Electrons are worse, behaving as waves, particles or probability clouds in different situations. I remember in 1970s my Materials Science Lecturer saying it was all really good fairy tales. I later had doubts about his expertise as he "proved" no material had the bandgap needed for blue LEDs.
I suspect most atomic, quantum and semiconductor physics is Alchemy/Magic dressed up as science. Newton and Kepler were Alchemists. Not sure about Copernicus and Galileo, but they and Kepler also had Astrology as a sideline.
To be fair to your lecturer, no single element had the enargy/bandgap require for blue LEDs. However a rather smart scientist managed to work out how to use a combination of elements to produce the required gap and his research also contributed to much brighter LEDs than were previously thought possible.
Science is full of people claiming limits, later scientists merrily break these "limits"... because they can. The statement a couple of hundred years that there was nothing left to discover was probably the lowest point of such claims.
stupid squishy protons I bet that gets really important when thinking about how neutron stars squish up together :O hey I bet theres different types of crystal structure in them too, like how iron forms different packing patterns :V bet you get a massive cosmic ding when one collapses from one packing structure to another cos it just had enough mass added or something that'd be pretty awesome they'd be like really stiff spherical bells hah that's like a perfect assumption already ;D
From experience, I can tell you the energy in a lamb shift is variable.
A lot depends on whether it is a breach birth or if the ewe is in the barn or under a bloody hedge.
Regarding size I need something give wn idea of scale, aniseed balls are small and I know what they look like, so how do they compare with a proton?
Well, as aniseed balls are about 1cm in diameter, 0.5cm in radius. So the aniseed ball is around 600,240,096,038,415.4 times bigger than the proton. .
Or to look at it another way, if you imagine that the aniseed ball is the proton, you'd need to compare it to something with a radius of around 20 Astronomical units.
"We are a famously stealin' folk. Aren't we, lads? Whut's it we're famous for?"
"Stealin'!" shouted the blue men.
"And what else, lads?"
"Fightin'!"
"And what else?"
"Drinkin'!"
"And what else?"
There was a certain amount of thought about this, but they all reached the same conclusion.
"Drinkin' and fightin'!"
"And there was summat else," muttered the twiddler. "Ach, yes. Tell the hag, lads!"
"Stealin' an' drinkin' an' fightin'!" shouted the blue men cheerfully.
I opened that story and saw words on a page. Individual words made perfect sense to me but as a whole this article served to inform me that there are some things in the universe I will never understand in the slightest. I am now comfortable with this.
Boffins please continue.
If any of this quantum doofery will affect the price or taste of my ale please let me know.
Who knows, it's only a cloud of energy at the end of the day. Who's to say it doesn't vary with respect to another cloud of energy. Or indeed time itself ?
And just to muddy the waters further, are we sure all protons are the same ? I appreciate there's no reason to think otherwise, but are we assuming or is there some sort of proof in the equations of the boffins or has someone actually tried to experimentally demonstrate it.
The great thing about science, is that for every question you can think of to try and answer, there's 10 more waiting to be asked.
I wonder if string theory comes up with a good 'reason' for this? When I was doing nuclear physics it was noticeable that atomic nuclei were different sizes to different things, Nearly invisible to neutrinos and energetic neutrons and yet some will just swallow neutrons of the right energy as if they were a near solid wall!
So you're stating/assuming that the environment matters not at all? For example, might is not be that a proton is a little bigger if it's in a cloud of electrons? Sure, protons under identical conditions would show identical results....
Is physical radius the same as charge radius?
I think stating some things as certainties just now might be unwise.
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Hello again John,
Actually there are as many Time dimensions as Physical ones - but since you've only discovered Forwards/Backwards for Time and Forwards/Backwards, Left/Right, Up/Down and Spinward/Widdershins for Physical, I'll let you get on with it for a few fenovarr...
Actually there are as many Time dimensions as Physical ones
You are correct in the basics, but any given dimension has two directions, forward and backward, thus we have three dimensions of space and three of time. This gives us a total of six dimensions to move through and 666 permutations of those for those limited creaturs experiencing only three spatial dimensions and one for time. For those that really payed attention to the above, note that the number found is the true and exact Number of the Beast.
Electrons connects magnetic and electric forces. If it had size it would have internal sheer and other forces. Those internal forces do not exist, so it has no size. Proton can also connect magnet and electric and its the same, ZERO sized.
What you see as size is the movement in the oscillating electric field. When you measure it at any point in time, its position is whatever its nearest resonance point on the field at that point in the oscillation pattern.
See that twirling motion in the cloud chamber as you smash apart particles? That's oscillatory motion over the oscillating field.
Postulate 1) If the shrapnel matter from your collision moves in an oscillatory way, so does the matter of the cloud in the chamber. The tracks that you see are the net effect of the two oscillations.
Supporting evidence 1) See the tracks that appear to go spiral backwards in time, back towards the collision? That would violate causality and time direction and be impossible. However the net effect of two oscillating fields appearing to go backwards in time is a common effect, see car wheels in TV programs appearing to turn backwards caused by the net effect of the camera shutter rate and the rotation rate.
P2) Electric as you know it is an oscillating force.
S2) If matter moves and electrons move in the field, then the electric fields you produce also oscillate.
P3) Light moves by the same mechanism.
S3) It interacts with matter, e.g. travels through glass it slows down. It only has electric effects, so that interaction must be electric. It behaves like a particle, is produced and absorbed by matter, at what point would its motion be difference that matters?
P4) Electric_h0, the non-oscillating version of electric, propagates infinitely fast.
S4) It binds light, travelling at C, it cannot therefore travel at C itself. It's oscillating version P2, (oscillating over the same field as light is oscillating over that field), unsurprisingly moves at the same apparent velocity as light.
P5) The electro magnetic wavelength of light is the net effect of its interaction with the detector. Just like P1 matter on matter oscillations, so light on matter is a net effect).
S5) Matter is oscillation, at zero Hz electro-magnetic frequency light would have to be moving the same way. i.e. If matter was oscillating at some universal F frequency then 0Hz EM frequency corresponds to that F oscillation. The frequency of light (and its polarization and all other components of oscillatory motion) are also the net effect of the two oscillations.
P6) If light at position R1 has the same propeties at position R2 and all its properties did not travel with it because they are the net effect of the detector and the light, then the detector at R1 is oscillating the same way as the detector at R2.
S6) Yep, everything is in resonance, because P4 propagates infinitely fast, you could not stop the oscillations equalizing out over time. It is not magic that you atomic clocks oscillate at the same rate if at the same temperature and velocity, it is the underlying resonant frequency that drives it.
P7) Magnetic is an oscillating force too, and is resonant with electric. ( F/2)
S7) Again the electron connects magnetic and electric forces, but only if there is motion involved. If there is no motion then there is no force. i.e. it must be resonant. Magnetic and electric applying to an electron creates velocity at right angles to both, this is impossible, the velocity should be in the plane of the forces. It is impossible with static forces, it connects these forces even in a vacuum, and the the electron would have to be anchored to the vacuum to push against it! However its trivial to have a net 'waddle' and no net effect over time.
P8) Magnetic has a clumping force too. ALL the harmonics of F have clumping variants.
S8) Put magnets in a bag, shake them up, they clump together.
Do you wanna take a guess at gravity? Or why some atoms are gasses and some solids?
Go try assembling the nucleus without strong force, using only resonance:
P9) When you do, you'll find there are no neutrons and protons, there is +ve monopoles, and a binding donut and it's mirror image. A binding donut is an oscillation looping back on itself. I use the shorthand of calling it by its loop size. e.g. electron has F2 {-ve monopole} F2', these F2's return to their same position after 2 oscillations, F2' is the same donut mirrored, the anti-donut if you wish. F2 is why magnetic is F/2 oscillating electric force, the F2 gives it an F/2 waddle. When you break apart the nucleus, e.g. knocking an +ve using an F1 oscillation, the F2 becomes wrapped in the twists of the binding donut that were holding the +ve and forms a neutron.
S9) See that magic connection between the number of neutrons and +ve protons? They were literally part of the binding holding the +ves together.
So, from the above, the size of the proton (you measure the +ve, a free travelling proton also has binding donut wrappers) is the net effect of the oscillation in the matter of the proton, and the detector. It's size will vary depending on how you chose to measure it.
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