Sunday 14 August 2016

WELL, THAT'S STRANGE — Researchers orbit a muon around an atom, confirm physics is broken The proton's charge radius shouldn't change, and yet it appears to.



What does all this mean simply put?
During my College days my classmates had an ambition of growing their beards (wispy though at that point of time), and strutting around like scientists. The Feynman Lectures on Physics was the "in thing" in those days not unlike whatsapp today. One of my friends and fellow students, Anya Thakur (he went to become launch director at NASA I believe) used to hold lectures on the same! Our system of study was we would read and understand a chapter then teach others. We believed teaching was the best way of learning to get to the heart of a subject. At the end of many of our study sessions and our preparations for the IIT entrance, I had the same question for him, Yes so what does it all mean simply put   He used to retort you dumb ass your brains are in your knees. Well well that's how I joined the Army. At least I now know what that means simply put " My brains are in my knees"

That helped me to understand how the substituting of muons for electrons to determine the radius of the protons influence, was Einsteinly correct! In my simple mind, with my brain situated in my knees, it is  hard to fathom the fact (if it really is so) . While a muon may have some similar properties, the muon has a mass 200 times that of an electron . Obviously , it will have its own mass influence on the field of the proton. I have no clue how the readings of a proton will be the same between an electron and a muon when one has a mass 200 times the other..

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