It seems that one of the smallest building blocks of matter is smaller than we thought.
@kralizec and subscribe to my Youtube channel at Kralizec Gaming Youtube ChannelIt seems that the previous measurements of the size of the proton are inaccurate. At least this is what researchers from the York University in Toronto claim. Their eight years worth of experiment showed that the diameter of this tiny particle is about five percent smaller than we thought so far.
Never before have we done such a comprehensive measurement. Scientists refined the diameter of the proton from 0.88 femtometers to 0.833 femtometers (10-15 m). The results don’t really change anything specific about physics (at least for the moment), they just give us a more precise measurement of something we already have. What you need to remember is that a proton doesn’t really have any solid boundaries. It’s more of a cloud which edges are formed by the strength of its positive charge.
To measure the size of such a cloud of energy we use two different methods. In the first, you shoot negatively charged particles at an atom of hydrogen. If you shoot enough particles you can then estimate an area at which there is no more positive charge. This was the way the original measurement of 0.88 femtometers was made.
The second method utilizes the detection of changes in the energy of electrons orbiting the proton. This method is based on quantum mechanics which claim that sub-atomic particles never have a precisely defined position. They say that occasionally an electron can find itself even in the center of a proton. And it precisely the measurement of changes in energy levels – also known as Lamb shift – that is used to measure the proton’s size most often.
The researchers that claim the proton is smaller used both of the methods. On top of that instead of using an electron in the second method, they used a heavier particle known as a muon which can exist in the core of the proton for a longer time allowing for longer and thus more accurate measurements.
And so, after eight years of tiny experiments, we have performed the most accurate measurement of anything ever before.
