Is the proton losing weight, or has the fabric of the Universe changed?

[IChing]

News


Published online: 20 April 2006; | doi:10.1038/news060417-7
A universal constant on the move

It seems that nothing stays the same: not even the 'constants' of physics. An experiment suggests that the mass ratio of two fundamental subatomic particles has decreased over the past 12 billion years, for no apparent reason.

The startling finding comes from a team of scientists who have calculated exactly how much heavier a proton is than an electron. For most purposes, it is about 1,836 times heavier. But dig down a few decimal places and the team claims that this value has changed over time.

The researchers admit that they are only about 99.7% sure of their result, which physicists reckon is a little better than 'evidence for' but not nearly an 'observation of' the effect. If confirmed, however, the discovery could rewrite our understanding of the forces that make our Universe tick.

Fickle forces

This is not the first time physicists have suspected physical constants of inconstancy.

In 1937, the physicist Paul Dirac famously suggested that the strength of gravity could change over time. And arguments about the fine-structure constant, , have raged for years (see 'The inconstant constant?'). The fine-structure constant measures the strength of the electromagnetic force that keeps electrons in place inside atoms and molecules.
>>>>>snip
http://www.nature.com/news/2006/060417/full/060417-7.html

[Duer 157099]

1. So can I change the weight on my driver's license now?

I mean that's got to add up.

No but seriously, that's interesting.

[xchrom]

2. i can only imagine their surprise at that.

:wow: :crazy: :wow:

[rumpel]

3. Interesting

extra dimensions occupied by the particle might be changing shape.

Or perhaps it's a consequence of the speed of light slowing down, or general relativity behaving in odd ways. "We just don't know what the explanation is," Webb admits.

[Occulus]

10. Just FYI, as to that first statement, see this:

"extra dimensions occupied by the particle might be changing shape."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heim_Theory

from that page, see these:

http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/aiaa2004-3700-letter.pdf
http://www.hpcc-space.de/publications/documents/aiaa2003-4990-Talk_Huntsville.pdf

And then take a look at the Wikipedia talk pages and the Heim theory discussion at forum.physorg.com:

http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?showtopic=4385

Interesting stuff. I don't intend to derail, but it touches on the 'extra dimensions' concept.

EDITED TO ADD:

here's recent reply on that forum:

http://forum.physorg.com/index.php?s=a63693555137d675707fba7e3b8fed06&showtopic=4385&st=660

QUOTE (Robert W. Hawkins @ Apr 16 2006, 02:47 PM)
So "elementary particles" are actually just interacting deformations in Heims' lattice?


WHAT A LOAD OF FERTILIZER'}

That was my first reaction on seeing Heim's theory. Then I programmed his equations for myself in Mathematica and was able to confirm the values for particle masses. When I can get agreement good to less than .001 % relative error on all those particles, it makes me think there's more here than fertilizer.

How do you explain this?

jreed

Indeed. The forum contains a java applet for predicting particle masses using equations from Heim's theory, but I'm not about to wade through that forum at this hour to find it.

My advice is, read from the beginning of that discussion, WHEN YOU HAVE TIME. There's a LOT there.

[SlipperySlope]

4. Blame it on the proton ninjas!

[HereSince1628]

5. Silly, this 'brane we call the universe is just a local phenomenon

Physicists, so certain everything is certain. Always dreaming up ways to measure constants, and then whoopsy! add a couple more dimensions...don't expect the speed of light to be constant. Now protons have an obesity problem.

[Peace Patriot]

6. Think of an ant trying to figure out what the earth is all about, how big

it is, what shape it is, how the forces that operate upon it and within it affect the lives of ants, and what an ant might be able to perceive about these things--that's about where we stand, in terms of understanding the universe--only we are much, much, much smaller that the ant in proportion to everything else.

But I'll give us this. We have a most amazing curiosity--curiosity that doesn't quite fit with evolutionary theory. Evolution seems to tell a story of a little bit of curiosity, a little bit of innovation, being selected for--not a lot. A lot gets you into big trouble. It leads to big mistakes and dead ends. So why has evolution selected for this simply amazingly curious, amazingly innovative, and hugely imaginative brain--that can do things like weigh protons (not to mention discover protons) and write "Hamlet"? You'd think we would have gone the way of the dinosaurs a long time ago, rather than having become the most successful, large-ish species that Mother Earth ever created. Well, the short time-frame of our existence may tell all--we may yet blow ourselves to smithereens or destroy the planet's biosphere with clever toxics.

We sure are a puzzle--in and of ourselves--equal to that of particle physics, a truly mind-boggling science.

[Demeter]

7. Proton-Lite: Tastes Great, Less Filling!

Marketing got to the sub-atomic level, I guess.

[IChing]

8. some very humorous comments in this tread

and they say that science doesn't have a sense of humor.


The dimension constant mention here was interesting
Of course that is before we knew the Universal constants had an eating disorder.

[TechBear_Seattle]

14. Science has a great sense of humor

It's just a weird sense of humor.

A poster on the psych department bulletin board announced a lecture from one of the leaders in the field of psychology. The poster said that it would be free to students, ID required. Someone had scrawled underneath, "Should we bring our EGO as well?"

Q: What do you get when you cross a strange green, charmed red and top blue quark with lots of gluons?
A: I don't know, but you're giving me a hadron!

And don't get me started about math jokes :rofl:

[IChing]

9. "The fabric of the Universe changed"

Case closed........LOL

[sutz12]

11. And God said, Let there be a lighter proton.

And the proton was made lighter, and God saw that it was good.
And the evening and the morning were the eighth day.

Hey, he had his day of rest. He had to go back to work on something, right?

[Ready4Change]

12. Wandering thought.

I just like thought games like this. I've read a couple of (lightweight) physics books, one on string theory, some Feynman, etc... (And yes, I've stayed at a Holiday Inn. :) )

Anyway, as I understand it, many theories say that the universe, in it's very first moments, had no dimensions, or even, perhaps, time. That, as the universe exploded, our 3 spacial and 1 time dimensions "unfolded", and, around the same time, many of the laws that govern the universe got set in stone, or plasma, as the case might have been.

Now the thought occurs to me: There is absolutely no reason to think that process has stopped. Dimensions unfolded, rules got established, matter began coalescing, as the universe expanded and it's heat, it's energy, got spread out. By all (scientific) accounts, the universe is STILL expanding. If so, there's no reason to think that a 5th or more dimensions aren't getting ready to unfold.

We may be ants, walking about on a seemingly endless, flat table top, who are about to encounter a vertical wall, and have no idea what to make of it.

(Or, perhaps, the older measurements, made with older, less accurate instruments, were simply off.)

[Canuckistanian]

13. Article is behind a pay firewall

Damn, I wanted to see it, too.