# Are there any ideas for why a proton's radius is smaller than predicted? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 12, 2013, 10:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127 "2013-02-12T22:56:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2013, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/21 "2013-02-16T23:46:52Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > Because at the scale of a nucleus, it _doesn’t_ cancel out completely. If the color force has infinite range, why should the scale matter? ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/22 "2013-02-17T00:43:28Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > If the color force has infinite range, why should the scale matter? This is not really how QCD works, from what I understand it is much, much more complex, but here’s a really simple model to show why distance can still matter even when the force between any two particles is (effectively) independent of distance: Imagine a meson made up of a quark with red color charge and an antiquark of anti-red color charges also present is lone quark of red color charge. The lone quark will feel an attractive force of 10,000 N from the antiquark in the meson and a repulsive force also of approximately 10,000 N from the quark in the meson. If the distance between the meson and the lone quark is 10 m, which is many, many times greater than distance between the two quarks in the meson, the attractive and repulsive forces will be coming from the same direction and therefore cancel out leading to a net force of zero. At the other end of the scale if the lone quark is so close to the meson that it is effectively in between the quark and the antiquark, it will feel an attractive force of 10,000 N from one direction and a repulsive force of 10,000 N in the opposite direction, leading to a net force of 20,000 N attracting it to the antiquark. The total attraction will depend on the angle between the quark and the antiquark in the meson, which falls off rapidly with distance. Like I say this is just a toy model of a force that doesn’t change with distance and shouldn’t be taken too seriously. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/23 "2013-02-17T00:52:14Z")
Except is it color charge that is responsible or the gluonic field? Here is the excerpt from [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_confinement)on color confinement which seems to indicate that it is indeed something of a mystery. > [@](#): > > The reasons for quark confinement are somewhat complicated; no analytic proof exists that [quantum chromodynamics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_chromodynamics) should be confining. The current theory is that confinement is due to the force-carrying [gluons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon) having color charge. As any two [electrically-charged](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_charge) particles separate, the [electric fields](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_field) between them diminish quickly, allowing (for example) [electrons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electron) to become unbound from [atomic nuclei](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atomic_nucleus). However, as a quark-antiquark pair separates, the gluon field forms a narrow [tube](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QCD_string) (or string) of color field between them. This is quite different from the behavior of the electric field of a pair of positive and negative electric charges, which extends into the whole surrounding space and diminishes at large distances. Because of this behavior of the gluonic field, there acts a strong force between the quark pair which remains constant, regardless of their distance [[3]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_confinement#cite_note-3)[[4]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_confinement#cite_note-4), with a strength of around 160,000 Newtons, corresponding to the weight of 16 tons. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/24 "2013-02-17T01:00:43Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > Except is it color charge that is responsible or the gluonic field? Here is the excerpt from [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_confinement)on color confinement which seems to indicate that it is indeed something of a mystery. Like I said don’t take my previous post too seriously, there’s so much wrong with it. It’s just to show that distance can matter even when the force between any two individual particles doesn’t change with distance. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/25 "2013-02-17T01:03:53Z")
> [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > Like I said don’t take my previous post too seriously, there’s so much wrong with it. It’s just to show that distance can matter even when the force between any two individual particles doesn’t change with distance. Fair enough, I just want to highlight one part of that quote though: “no analytic proof exists that [quantum chromodynamics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_chromodynamics) should be confining” ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/26 "2013-02-17T17:10:46Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > Except that unlike the electromagnetic force, QCD specifically states that the range is infinite. Indeed, they are different forces with different properties. I just wanted to point out that the idea that the force can get very strong for certain configurations isn’t unique. > [@](#): > > Also the strong nuclear force is the residual force that is left over when quarks and gluons bind - no? No, the strong force is the actual force. I didn’t offer a refutation to this claim earlier in the thread, but perhaps I should have as I see it might have caused confusion. In my post, when I said “strong force” I meant the actual fundamental force mediated by gluon exchange. This is standard usage. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/27 "2013-02-17T17:38:52Z")
> [@Asympotically\_fat](#): > > This is not really how QCD works, from what I understand it is much, much more complex This is correct. To expand: QCD is applied in practice in terms of the momenta involved rather than the distances involved, but the former language can loosely be converted into the latter by invoking the de Broglie relationship between momentum and wavelenth. In any case, in the more natural momentum language, the strength of the strong force varies quite dramatically at different momentum scales. Of note, QCD exhibits something called asymptotic freedom, namely that the strength of the interaction decreases toward zero at very high momentum scales. (By “momentum scale” here I mean how much momentum is exchanged between two interacting particles. “Very high momentum scale” thus means that two high-momentum particles interact and exchange much of their momenta.) Translating this to a spatial language has pitfalls, but doing so anyway implies that the strong force has zero strength at zero distance. > [@deltasigma](#): > > Fair enough, I just want to highlight one part of that quote though: “no analytic proof exists that quantum chromodynamics should be confining” This is a less interesting statement than it might seem at first. It’s a statement about the calculational difficulties of QCD. For the other forces, you can turn the calculations into an infinite sum where the terms gets less and less important, allowing you to calculate just the first couple of terms and estimate how big the tiny amount that’s left over can be. This doesn’t work at all for QCD, and unless you include an infinite number of terms, you won’t get close to the answer. Folks have made significant mathematical progress toward showing confinement analytically, but it has been demonstrated through other means and isn’t a major open question or anything. In particular, confinement has been well-studied through numerical calculations (“lattice QCD”). ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/28 "2013-02-17T19:50:58Z")
> [@](#): > > This doesn’t work at all for QCD… I would quibble with the “at all”, since you _can_ still use perturbative expansions for very high-momentum problems. It’s still no good for most problems, though. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/29 "2013-02-17T19:56:34Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I would quibble with the “at all”, since you _can_ still use perturbative expansions for very high-momentum problems. It’s still no good for most problems, though. The problem at hand was confinement, and I had a line talking how QCD is particularly non-perturbative for this problem, but I took it out as TMI. But, yes, for other questions QCD can be handled perturbatively. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/30 "2013-02-17T20:57:03Z")
> [@Pasta](#): > > No, the strong force is the actual force. I didn’t offer a refutation to this claim earlier in the thread, but perhaps I should have as I see it might have caused confusion. In my post, when I said “strong force” I meant the actual fundamental force mediated by gluon exchange. This is standard usage. [This explanation from Duke University seems to contradict that.](http://www.phy.duke.edu/~kolena/modern/hansen.html) > [@](#): > > Another product of color is residual strong interaction, which accounts for protons sticking together in the nucleus of an atom even though they all have the same electric charge. The quarks of one proton become glued to the quarks of another proton and the attraction between the quarks is strong enough to overcome the repulsion between the charged protons. As for [lattice QCD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_QCD), although I have to admit I don’t have the background to understand it, it seems like it is a special instantiation of the theory designed specifically to avoid some of the issues we’ve been discussing. > [@](#): > > **Lattice QCD** is a well-established non-[perturbative](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perturbation_theory_%28quantum_mechanics%29) approach to solving the [quantum chromodynamics](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_chromodynamics) (QCD) theory of [quarks](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quark) and [gluons](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gluon). It is a [lattice gauge theory](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_gauge_theory) formulated on a grid or [lattice](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_%28group%29) of points in space and time. When the size of the lattice is taken infinitely large and its sites infinitesimally close to each other, the continuum QCD is recovered.[[1]](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_QCD#cite_note-wilson-1) ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/31 "2013-02-17T21:10:20Z")
Your statement is also contradicted in [this chart from CERN](http://pdg.web.cern.ch/pdg/particleadventure/frameless/chart_frame.html) > [@](#): > > Residual Strong Interaction > The strong binding of color-neutral protons and neutrons to form nuclei is due to residual strong interactions between their color-charged constituents. It is similar to the residual electrical interaction which binds electrically neutral atoms to form molecules. It can also be viewed as the exchange of mesons between the hadrons. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/32 "2013-02-17T21:43:27Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > As for [lattice QCD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_QCD), although I have to admit I don’t have the background to understand it, it seems like it is a special instantiation of the theory designed specifically to avoid some of the issues we’ve been discussing. Most physical situations are simply not amenable to exact analytic solutions and the ones that are tend to very simple situations or situations which are simplified by a high degree of symmetry. The fact that analytic solutions are often not available is a feature of all the different regimes in physics: e.g. Newtonian physics, quantum physics and general relativity. When analytic methods are not available, usually peturbation theory -where you take situation for which an analytic solution does exist and describe other situations as series of peturbations from that solution, is the preferred method of calculation. Peturbation theory is used extensively in quantum physics (it’s also used in Newtonian physics and general relativity); sometimes peturbation theory can be used to obtain exact answers, but often it is useful as a way of obtaining numerical answers. Sometimes though even peturbation theory is ineffective. Even in QED, where nearly all practical calculations are done peturbatively, peturbation theory has problems, but physicists use what some consider a bit of a fudge called renormalization to fix those problems. Even if is a fudge though it does work as answers in extremely close agreement with experiment are obtained (in peturbative quantum gravity even renormalization fails though for example). In QCD however peturbation theory is only of use in a limited set of situations, so a different method know as the lattice model is used more often. In the lattice model spacetime is broken down in to discrete chunks, again this has a particular advantage of being useful to obtain numerical solutions. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/33 "2013-02-17T21:46:42Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > [This explanation from Duke University seems to contradict that.](http://www.phy.duke.edu/~kolena/modern/hansen.html) I don’t see anything in your cites that contradicts what I said. Which claim are you taking issue with? Perhaps you are misinterpreting the word “residual”. When these cites say “residual strong interaction”, they aren’t defining “strong interactions” as the residual force. On the contrary, the strong interaction is binding the quarks together, and the resulting entity is neutral except for a residual effect. This residual effect of the strong force is what they are referring to by “residual strong force”, but the important semantic feature is that the naked phrase “strong force” does not imply the residual force, which is what was claimed in post #13. Your cites employ the standard usage of “strong force”. ---
**Author:** ![Asympotically\_fat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e47c2d/32.png) [@Asympotically\_fat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Asympotically_fat)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/34 "2013-02-17T21:47:14Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > Your statement is also contradicted in [this chart from CERN](http://pdg.web.cern.ch/pdg/particleadventure/frameless/chart_frame.html) I don’t see what your objection is here. The strong force usually means the fundamental force as opposed to the residual strong force. Sometimes the residual strong force is simply know as the strong force, which isn’t necessarily a huge contradiction as it is a direct result of the strong force. ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/35 "2013-02-17T21:55:55Z")
> [@](#): > > As for [lattice QCD](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lattice_QCD), although I have to admit I don’t have the background to understand it, it seems like it is a special instantiation of the theory designed specifically to avoid some of the issues we’ve been discussing. It’s real QCD, just approximated numerically as opposed to via perturbation theory. For an analogy, consider finding the area under a curve. (I’m assuming you know calculus, but if not, this analogy won’t be very helpful.) The area can be found by taking an integral, which itself can be analytically evaluated by noting how limits work and taking the appropriate ones. If none of that were possible (say the mathematics of limits hadn’t been invented yet or were somehow disallowed), you could recast the problem from an integral into a sum of areas of rectangles ([Riemann sum](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_sum)). If the Riemann sum is too hard to do by hand, you might use a computer. In the extreme case of an infinite number of rectangles, you recover the continuum behavior of calculus. But you can still draw mathematically meaningful conclusions from the approximate, numerical method. ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/36 "2013-02-17T22:06:45Z")
[This seems to be the best answer I’ve found so far](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/funfor.html). The force is “residual” in the sense that it is mediated by pions or other particles which are exchanged between nucleons. Since those have limited range, it explains why the color force is confined. > [@](#): > > A force which can hold a nucleus together against the enormous forces of repulsion of the protons is strong indeed. However, it is not an inverse square force like the electromagnetic force and it has a very [short range](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/exchg.html#c4). [Yukawa](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/hadron.html#c7) modeled the strong force as an [exchange force](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/exchg.html#c1) in which the exchange particles are [pions](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/hadron.html#c2) and other heavier particles. The [range](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/exchg.html#c2) of a particle exchange force is limited by the uncertainty principle. It is the strongest of the [four fundamental forces](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/funfor.html#c1) > > ``` > Since the [protons](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/proton.html#c1) and [neutrons](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/proton.html#c3) which make up the nucleus are themselves considered to be made up of [quarks](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/quark.html#c1), and the quarks are considered to be held together by the [color force](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/forces/color.html#c1), the strong force between nucleons may be considered to be a residual color force. In the standard model, therefore, the basic exchange particle is the [gluon](http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/particles/expar.html#c1) which mediates the forces between quarks. Since the individual gluons and quarks are contained within the proton or neutron, the masses attributed to them cannot be used in the range relationship to predict the range of the force. When something is viewed as emerging from a proton or neutron, then it must be at least a quark-antiquark pair, so it is then plausible that the pion as the lightest meson should serve as a predictor of the maximum range of the strong force between nucleons. > > ``` ---
**Author:** ![Pasta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ecccb3/32.png) [@Pasta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pasta)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2013, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/37 "2013-02-17T22:51:22Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > Since those have limited range, it explains why the color force is confined. Just to make sure it’s clear: color confinement isn’t a consequence of the finite range of a pion mediator. Rather, color confinement is present from the start in QCD. _Because_ of confinement, if you want to model nucleon-nucleon strong interactions in terms of particle exchange, the exchanged particle needs to be colorless but also needs to carry color internally. The pion is the lightest candidate for this. In other words, confinement isn’t caused by pion exchange having a limited range. Rather, one is stuck exchanging these massive pions due to confinement. Also just to be sure (it might be already) : pion exchange isn’t considered fundamental. It’s a descriptive model that bears fruit and that also had tremendous historical relevance, but underlying it still the fundamental gluon-mediated strong force. ---
**Author:** ![Seeker77](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d6d6ee/32.png) [@Seeker77](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Seeker77)\ **Post date:** [June 27, 2013, 12:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/38 "2013-06-27T12:45:21Z")
Fortunately, this man has the answer as to the proton’s size. [http://www.sciencedomain.org/abstract.php?iid=224&id=4&aid=1298#.Ucwyrtj2uSq](http://www.sciencedomain.org/abstract.php?iid=224&id=4&aid=1298#.Ucwyrtj2uSq) Read the full article and prepare to be amazed… ---
**Author:** ![brujaja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/4af34b/32.png) [@brujaja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brujaja)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/39 "2013-06-28T12:26:07Z")
> [@deltasigma](#): > > “sea quarks” Band name!! ---
**Author:** ![deltasigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e5b9ba/32.png) [@deltasigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deltasigma)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2013, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127/40 "2013-06-28T14:04:08Z")
I tried to find out what I could about the publication and author. [Rational Wiki has this](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nassim_Haramein): > [@](#): > > **Nassim Haramein** is a [physics](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Physics) researcher who rose to internet fame around 2010 for his work on the Schwartzchild proton, a theoretical particle asociated with [black holes](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Black_hole). He is the founder of **The Resonance Project** , a website and foundation concerned with Unified Physics. Assorted clips from his talks can be found on [YouTube](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/YouTube). Despite this, his article keeps getting deleted from [Wikipedia](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Wikipedia) on notability grounds..[[1]](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Nassim_Haramein#cite_note-0) He was featured prominently in the [conspiracy theory](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conspiracy_theory) movie _[Thrive](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Thrive)_, where he discusses the fundamental shape of the fabric of space, as well as potential [extraterrestrial](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial) involvement with Earth throughout history. > He is featured in the Gaiam film _The Black Whole,_ a 2011 documentary-type movie starring Haramein and his “vacuum is the key to everything” theory. In the movie, he addresses [quantum mechanics](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Quantum_mechanics), the [phi ratio](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Golden_ratio), tetrahedrons, symmetries in the structure of the vacuum, and, of course, black holes, which, according to Haramein, are everywhere and everything; we are constantly appearing and disappearing at the speed of light, so, half of the time, we are vacuum, made of “blocks” of 64 tetrahedrons, arranged in such a way that a mini-black hole is created right at the centre of each block, thus proving that we all have [four sides](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Time_cube).[[_citation needed_](http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Help:References)] He doesn’t have any academic credentials that I could find though. Also I think it’s interesting that [one of the reviewers](http://www.sciencedomain.org/uploads/1367411682-3-Reviewer_2_ANON_IV.pdf) for the article said the following: > [@](#): > > This manuscript contains trivial mathematics and algebraic manipulations expresed as more important than they are. > > The manuscript is filled with nonsensical sentences without proper definitions etc. > > If there is an explanation, why the product of proton charge and Schwarzschild radii is about equal to the square of Planck length, it not given in this manuscript, where is explained nothing. > > This text should not be published So how it went from that to being worthy of publication might be more interesting than the paper. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-there-any-ideas-for-why-a-protons-radius-is-smaller-than-predicted/650127.md?page=3)