Alas, Poor Proton! I Knew Him, Rydberg Constant
Monday, July 12, 2010 - 17:35
in Physics & Chemistry
Think a a mere 0.0350 millionth of a millionth of a millimeter is unimportant? Think again. At the Paul Scherrer Institute in Switzerland, an international team of researchers has now measured the proton with experiments they say are ten times more accurate than all previous ones. And all the old values for the dimension of the proton, the nucleus of the hydrogen atom, are off. Instead of 0.8768 femtometres it measures only 0.8418 femtometres, they say If so, at least one fundamental constant now changes and physicists also have to check the calculations of quantum electrodynamics. This theory is assumed to be very well proven, but its predictions do not agree with these latest measurements. read more