[link|http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/31/science/31PART.html|link]
"The researchers found that muons wobbled like microscopic tops, or perhaps frenetic dancers, about 229,074 times a second, when they were placed in a powerful magnetic field in a vacuum chamber. Physicists have long known that such vacuums are not really empty, but are filled with a sea of "virtual" particles that flit briefly into existence and back into nothingness again. Like dance partners, the virtual particles change the rate at which the muons wobble.
Theoretical physicists have long labored to calculate how much the rate of wobble, or precession, changes as a result of all the known particles in the virtual sea. Using those calculations, the Brookhaven researchers found last year \ufffd and confirmed with the newer studies, involving observations of four billion muons \ufffd that the actual wobble is about 0.6 times a second faster than predicted. The difference, called an anomaly by physicists, means the universe must contain previously undiscovered particles."
thanx,
bill

locally bigger or smaller? Hmm a measured mass of me looks small across the room to a girl but is larger when poking her in the eye? Sounds reasonable.
thanx,
bill