In 2012 I came across the proton radius measurement results of 2010 online (see for example »The size of the proton«, Randolph Pohl et al.), which yielded a radius ~ 4.4% smaller than the previously established value. That reminded me of my own theoretical work during my physics studies from 1986. I had not pursued it further at the time, since a deviation of 4.4% in physical measurements in the microcosmic realm means worlds apart. My calculations and considerations concerning the literature value for the proton radius then lay far outside the tolerable range for a serious claim of a thought model of my own. In reality, however, I already back then, as they say, “hit the nail on the head”; “I was spot on”.

Elementary Body Theory

A fundamental result of mass‑space coupling is that the product of the [rest] mass m0 and the [maximum] radius r0 of an «[elementary] body» is constant and is described by the mass‑radius constant equation [F1].

[F1]:  mass-radius-constant-equation

h: Planck's constant   c: speed of light

For m0 = mp it thus follows for r0 simplest, exactly calculated rp : proton radius

My phenomenologically based, formally simple, exact prediction of the proton radius from 1986 in the picture of the Elementary Body Theory gave me great joy in 2012 and was the prelude to intensive thought‑model‑based research. From then on I intensively occupied myself with the scientific, historical, and “social” aspects of theory formation in the field of theoretical fundamental physics. This resulted in literally decisive, phenomenologically founded, formal‑analytically simplest calculation possibilities for characteristic microscopic and macroscopic quantities.

QED and QCD on the Proton Radius

Within the framework of quantum field theoretical considerations (keywords QFT...QM...QED) respectively within the Standard Model of particle physics, the proton radius cannot be calculated. What can be found in the literature there as supposed calculation possibilities, by the way also for the proton mass, is based – “in short” – on lattice gauge (field) theory simulations. These are purely iterative procedures that, after very long computing times using cluster computer systems, self‑prophetically roughly “simulate” known measured values as results.  

In advance, looking ahead “noted in the margin”...

The physicists who had supposedly determined a ~ 4% larger proton radius in electron‑proton scattering experiments fought for a long time against the »Randolf Pohl & Co team«, who had repeatedly confirmed the smaller proton radius in muonic hydrogen and later also in regular hydrogen.

It turned out that the “fighters on a lost post” for a long time ignored that the measurement error in their scattering experiments was so large that the smaller proton radius measured value was already contained within it.

Elementary Body Theory (EBT) exactly calculated proton radius in fm

↓

This little experimental interpretation story is a broad hint, as will be shown repeatedly later, that once established experimental interpretations are only reluctantly revised by the standard model protagonists.[^EPM]

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[^EPM] Explicitly noted: If one brings older measurements of electron‑proton scattering concretely into “play”, proton radius values (»dispersion fit«, 1996, … high energy part 0.832(12) fm, page 14…) were already “discussed” in 1997 that agree well with the spectroscopically determined values for muonic and regular hydrogen. Also or already Robert Hofstadter determined in 1958(!) a value of the proton radius “compatible” with the Elementary Body Theory, …Electron‑Proton‑Scattering   Hofstadter et al 1958   r_p = 0.80 +/‑ 0.04 fm

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Historical Notes on the Proton Radius Inherent in the Proton Mass

There was a (presumably little noticed) remark by Wolfgang Finkelnburg from 1947 entitled “On the measure of nuclear distances and a curious relationship between the fundamental constants of physics” see: Finkelnburg 1947 reference

A Remark by Prof. Dürr on the Fundamental Nature of the Proton

What suggests that the proton is actually fundamental is a special coincidence to which the physicist Hans-Peter Dürr drew attention in his essay »New Developments in High‑Energy Physics – the End of Reductionism? (1986)«. He points out that the idea of a particle substructure fails when a characteristic threshold is reached.

This characteristic threshold results from the ratio between Planck’s constant and the speed of light. The resulting quantity has the dimension of a mass times a length. According to Dürr, for systems where the product of their mass m and their size R falls below this measure, the notion of a particle structure fails: m_R  << h/c » 10^-37 g cm.

As Dürr emphasizes, this occurs for the first time with a proton, because with the proton this limit is just reached: R » 10^-13 cm, m = 1.7 x 10^-24g, from which m_R » 10^-37 g cm follows.

Dürr takes this striking coincidence as an occasion to criticize the quark model. It seems to him, as he stresses, quite strange that nature, in order to accommodate our particle picture, resorts to such a special dynamics as quantum chromodynamics on its deeper levels. It seems to him much more convincing that the quark structure as well as a subquark structure only has the function of an effective description in the sense of the quasiparticle language of many‑body physics.

Source: Dürr, Hans-Peter, Neuere Entwicklungen in der Hochenergiephysik – das Ende des Reduktionismus? in: Selbstorganisation – Die Entstehung von Ordnung in Natur und Gesellschaft, (edited by Andreas Dress, Hubert Hendrichs and Günter Küppers, Munich 1986, pp. 15 – 34)

Hans-Peter Dürr (1929 - 2014) was, among other things, a collaborator of Werner Heisenberg and director of the Max Planck Institute for Physics until 1997.

Further

Michaele Suisse and Peter Cameron write in Quantum Interpretation of the Proton Anomalous Magnetic Moment interestingly the following …

“The role of the anomalous moment in the geometric Clifford algebra of topological mass generation of the proton suggests that the anomaly is not an intrinsic property of the proton in free space, but rather a topological effect of applying the electromagnetic bias field that is necessary to define the eigenstates determined by the measurement of the magnetic moment.” [February 2017]

The, compared to the Elementary Body Theory, fundamentally different approach of Michaele Suisse and Peter Cameron (thus also) comes to the conclusion that the magnetic moment of the proton is not intrinsic.

That is extremely remarkable. For, as will be shown in detail, within the framework of the Elementary Body Theory the standard model approach of quark‑based protons collapses. The anomalous magnetic moment of the proton can be calculated most simply mass‑radius coupled.