Chapter 158 Solving the Mystery of the Proton Radius
In the CERN venue, Xu Chuan wore a suit and walked onto the podium from the side aisle.
In Lecture Hall No. 1, the audience was crowded, with about two to three hundred people sitting. Among them are unknown little people, but also some big names in academia.
This was an exchange meeting that was no less impressive than the one where he reported on the Weyl-Berry conjecture at Princeton University.
After all, this is CERN, home to nearly half of the world's top theoretical physicists and high-energy physicists.
In the venue at this moment, there are more than three Nobel Prize winners in physics, not to mention the Einstein Prize winners, the Dirac Medal, the Hertz Prize, the Wolf Prize in Physics and other famous physics prize winners.
On the podium, Xu Chuan tried the microphone. After confirming that there was no problem, he cleared his throat and said:
"It's an honor for you all to attend today's report. The theme of today's report is a calculation method for the proton radius and a report on the experimental data of the atomic charge radius."
As he spoke, Xu Chuan inserted the USB flash drive in his hand into the computer, controlled the equipment in front of him, turned on the screen projection, showed the PPT, and then began to speak and report.
In order to leave some time to report on the solution to the proton radius mystery, Xu Chuan compressed the original report time.
Forty-five minutes of report, thirty minutes of speech time, and fifteen minutes of question time were all compressed into fifteen minutes by him to complete a calculation method of proton radius and report on experimental data of atomic charge radius.
After briefly reporting on the work he had done at CERN for nearly a month, Xu Chuan looked at the audience under the podium.
"Regarding a calculation method of proton radius and a report on experimental data of atomic charge radius, the basic situation is this. The experimental analysis data has been submitted to the CERN organization. CERN will arrange for people to conduct careful calculations. Do you have any questions?"
Under the podium, in the venue, an arm was raised.
Xu Chuan looked around and saw a somewhat unkempt old man raising his hand.
Seeing this person, Xu Chuan immediately remembered the words of Senior Brother Qi Xishao before.
Rich Flick would not let him go.
This stubborn party in the particle physics community has always believed that the large proton radius is the truth.
Sure enough, he is here now.
He stands here today and raises his own doubts about the small proton radius.
This is a stubborn old man. Even if Xu Chuan is confident enough in his work, he can't help but have a headache.
After all, the other party is not a parallel professor. On the contrary, the other party has won the Wolf Prize in Physics, which is one of the highest honors in the physics world after the Nobel Prize in Physics.
But since the other party has already raised his hand to ask a question, it is impossible to avoid it.
After extending his hand to signal the other party to ask questions, Xu Chuan looked at the slovenly old man.
“I observed that in the reporter’s demonstration data, on the ninth page, the incomplete QED value of the energy level of the hydrogen atom was corrected through the energy level formula. Will this affect the final proton radius value? ? Ask the reporter to discuss.”
Rishi Frick stared at Xu Chuan and said word by word.
"Page nine." Xu Chuan opened the argument data and found the place that Rich Frick knew.
"This correction comes from the fact that high-speed moving electrons will cause more or less displacement of the proton, which will affect the measurement of the proton's radius, so correction processing is required."
Before Xu Chuan finished speaking, he was interrupted by Rich Frick.
"Of course I know this, but based on historical proton radius experimental data comparison, the traditional QED data correction range is limited to about 0.0012~0.0021, but your corrected QED number is much higher than this."
After hearing Rich Frick's words, other physicists in the venue immediately focused their attention on this part of the analyzed data.
"As expected of Rich Frick, this question hits the nail on the head."
"This is indeed a problem, but the problem is not very serious. Just bring the correction parameters back into the calculation. However, I am afraid that the proton's radius value needs to be adjusted."
"Perhaps as this stubborn old man Rishi thinks, a large proton radius is the truth?"
"I always feel that there is something wrong here. The numerical correction is too outrageous. It is unlikely that this young reporter will make such a mistake. After all, he has solved a world-class conjecture and has excellent mathematical abilities."
On the podium, Xu Chuan's expression did not change much, and he even showed a slight smile.
This smile stunned Rich Frick, who was standing in the venue waiting for an answer. He didn't understand why he could still smile when facing a fatal question.
"Professor Rishi's question is very meaningful. My correction of the incomplete QED value of the energy level of the hydrogen atom indeed exceeds the previous value, but I will prove to you why I do this."
Xu Chuan smiled, stretched out his hand to control the computer on the podium, turned off the projected PPT report, and reopened a demonstration data.
"Please look here, please allow me to temporarily change or add the content of the report in the coming time."
In the venue, everyone became a little commotion after hearing Xu Chuan's words about changing the content of the report.
Including the staff at CERN, they all frowned slightly, not knowing what the young reporter was doing.
"For a long time, we have mainly relied on two methods to measure the charge radius of protons."
"One is an energy spectrum measurement of hydrogen-like atoms, and the other is a proton scattering experiment of electrons."
"In the past, we used these two methods to obtain a relatively accurate proton radius data. 0.87 femtometers, this is the number we have been using in the past, and it has been recognized until 2010."
"But in 2010, physicists at the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics used mesonic hydrogen, replacing the electron orbiting the nucleus with a meson, and got an even smaller number, 0.841 femtometers."
"This is the origin of the problem of the proton radius mystery. I won't go into details on this point. Everyone sitting here must understand it."
"Fundamentally, we want to understand what all the laws of physics are, and if there's a difference that no one can explain, there's a risk that the laws of physics will never be understood."
"But today, I'm here to explain the issues that cause this difference."
As soon as these words came out, there was an uproar in the venue.
Explain the mystery of the proton radius? Did he find the problem?
How can this be? The joint efforts of countless physicists over the past few years have yielded no results. If it were really so easy to solve, would this problem still exist today?
In the audience, Cao Hongyuan from the University of Science and Technology of China was stunned for a moment after hearing Xu Chuan's words.
He originally thought that today's report would end after the completion of a calculation method for the proton radius and the experimental data report on the atomic charge radius.
Unexpectedly, the appearance of the bad old man Rich Frick directly took the situation to another aspect.
Solving the proton radius mystery. Can this really be done?
Did he really find the problem, or was he forcibly concocting a theory in response to Rich Frick's question?
Thinking about it, he turned to look at Chen Zhengping sitting next to him.
As the mentor of the young man on the stage, he should know something in advance, right?
But what is surprising is that Chen Zhengping's expression is almost exactly the same as before, with doubts, surprise, and even a hint of worry on his face.
It seemed that the unexpected situation also exceeded his expectations.
Among the entire venue, the only ones who could remain calm were Edward Witt, Frank Wilzek and Xu Chuan's project team who knew this information in advance.
Xu Chuan ignored the commotion in the audience and continued his report.
"."
"The traditional 'Electron Proton Scattering Atomic Charge Radius Experiment' uses a metal container as the experimental device for the hydrogen atom cloud due to the limitations of the equipment. After the high-energy electron beam enters the experimental equipment, when it collides with the hydrogen atom cloud, Can cause scattering interference with metals.”
"Judging from past experiments, the scattering interference caused by high-energy electron beams and metal containers is very weak, so weak that it hardly affects the calculation of the proton's radius data. Therefore, this part of the data is ignored in the calculation."
"And after canceling the metal container, an exception occurred."
"Judging from the experimental data of this proton radius measurement, the scattering interference caused by high-energy electron beams and metal containers is far more powerful than previous calculations."
"The reason it was ignored is that a large part of its interference was converted into energy level data, and this part of the data was not calculated by previous physicists."
"Therefore, the calculated radius of the proton is larger than the correct radius."
"I verified this using some previous historical observation data."
"You can look at these data. Through calculation, it is obvious that the experimental energy level data without using metal containers as hydrogen atom cloud equipment is significantly higher by 1.7 to 1.8 energy levels."
"From this, we can completely confirm"
"The scattering interference produced by high-energy electron beams and metal containers is indeed stronger than previously calculated by physicists, and is strong enough to affect the proton's radius data."
"And the actual value of the proton's radius is much smaller than the previous measured value."
"Perhaps, when the experimental equipment is advanced enough in the future, the value of 0.831 can be further reduced."
"That's my additional report."
"The report is complete, thank you all for your patience."
There was silence in the venue.
Everyone was shocked by Xu Chuan's report.
No one spoke, even Rich Frick who asked the question stood silent.
Is it because part of the scattering interference caused by the high-energy electron beam and the metal container is converted into energy level data, eventually leading to an error in the calculation of the proton's radius?
If so, many physicists in the physics community have made serious mistakes for a long time about the size of the proton.
Although I don’t want to admit this problem, the data does not lie.
Those calculated accurate data all point to this serious problem.
Perhaps, the young man on the podium really might be right.
Rich Frick stood silent.
Although he was very reluctant to admit this in his heart, he could not find a new loophole to refute, whether it was a theoretical point of view, or data analysis and calculation, he could not find a loophole.
On the contrary, his previous doubts about the other party were more like an accelerant, making the other party fly higher.
On the podium, Xu Chuan waited quietly for a while, and no one raised their hands to speak or ask questions.
The CERN examiner walked up to the podium and made a brief summary of the report. He thanked the researchers who participated in the project and Xu Chuan for the new discoveries he brought to the physics community.
He also encouraged other physicists and research institutions to verify the mystery of the proton radius, hoping that in the near future, this problem can be thoroughly confirmed and solved, and more accurate proton radius data can be obtained.
When the CERN staff announced the end of the report, the physicists in the venue left the auditorium one after another.
When Xu Chuan came down from the podium, the members of the group immediately swarmed over.
"Well done! Xu!" Athol Murphy, an intern at MIT, excitedly came up and punched Xu Chuan, hitting his chest and making a dull sound.
"Xu, you have solved a super difficult problem in the physics world. I believe you will win the Dirac Medal and the Einstein Prize next year."
Xu Chuan smiled and said, "It's not me, it's us together. Your contribution is equally important. I will add your names to the paper. I hope it will be helpful to you."
Hearing this, the team members all showed brilliant smiles on their faces. Nothing can make people happier than this.
A paper can usually have 3-6 authors, including the first author, corresponding author, second author, third author, etc. Different authors have completely different weights in the paper.
This time, the mystery of the proton radius was solved. The first author and the corresponding author are undoubtedly Xu Chuan's, but the second author and the third author are also not ignored by the team members.
After all, this is a well-known problem in the physics world. It is the most cutting-edge problem in the current particle physics world. It is second only to the discovery of the pentaquark particle last year.
If there is no new important discovery at CERN this year, then the solution to the mystery of the proton radius will be the most significant achievement of CERN this year.
Being able to sign a paper like this, even as the second or third author, will be of great help to their future development.
With such a resume, it will be much easier for them to find a job or apply for scientific research experiments or equipment in the future.
For example, Nunnally Kessler from the University of Göttingen will undoubtedly have a formal researcher position at CERN, and it may even be brought forward from next year to this year.
Especially for Jonah Krill, the youngest member of the team (apart from Xu Chuan), who is still studying for a doctorate at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology.
Coming to CERN for internship is partly for learning, and partly for graduation thesis.
And now, his goal has been achieved.
Given the importance of the mystery of the proton radius, even if he can only get a third author position in the thesis, it is enough for him to graduate from any school.