One example is the "fine-structure constant" which determines the shape and properties of atoms and molecules. Their mass is linked to, among other things, the value of fundamental physical constants. These minuscule particles, which, according to current knowledge, have no spatial extent, thus have immense power in nature. Just reading this text means that electrons must convert light into nerve impulses in the eyes. The fact that physicists now know the mass of the electron to eleven decimal places is important, because electrons are pretty much ubiquitous. Project leader Sven Sturm explains the extremely high sensitivity of the "scale" used to achieve this result with the following image: "If we were to apply this to an Airbus A-380, we would be able to detect a mosquito as a stowaway just by weighing." In just a few years, the collaborative research, headed by the Heidelberg team, has managed to determine the value for the mass of an electron more precisely by a factor of 13. "Normally, you would need to carry out ten or twenty years of research in precision physics to improve a fundamental value by a single order of magnitude", says Klaus Blaum, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, who is overjoyed to report the "huge response" that this most recent result is generating at scientific conferences.
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