In praise of the proton

摘要

THERE are many messy problem; that physics does not attempt to solve. As the theorist Robert Jaffe of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology observed: we don't try to predict the structure of a Volkswagen from first principles but we like to think we could. That's why the current confusion about one of nature's most basic particles, the proton, has touched a nerve. It is just the sort of problem that physics should master with aplomb.