Physicists spend a great deal of time and effort on understanding the errors in any physical measurement. A particle physics PhD involves about 2 years of classes, 2 years of slave labor, 1 year of measurement and then 3 years of error analysis. This is no joke. Since particle physics is an inherently statistical field, particle physicists are experts at error analysis. http://pdg.lbl.gov/2013/listings/rpp2013-list-electron.pdf On Sat, Nov 23, 2013 at 4:05 PM, Henry Baker <hbaker1@pipeline.com> wrote:
There's a bit of a problem in gathering together a million-electron blob: they repel one another like crazy. In fact, the amount of energy require to confine them is significant in the m=E/c^2 sense.
It might be easier to estimate the mass of an electron & an anti-electron by colliding them together & measuring the energy.
At 01:46 PM 11/23/2013, Warren D Smith wrote:
If you try to measure the mass m of an electron, some experimental error DELTAm, and the energy-time uncertainty principle combined with the finite lifetime of the universe (at least so far...) causes a limit on the accuracy of m.
So one could argue, the mass of the electron is inherently unknowable and undefined to more than a certain number of decimal places.
Except, somebody could measure the mass of a million-electron blob to try to dodge that limitation.
So anyhow... what are the inherent limits on how many decimal places can exist in such quantities (any further would have no meaning) and if so, estimate them. -- Warren D. Smith http://RangeVoting.org <-- add your endorsement (by clicking "endorse" as 1st step)
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