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Originally Posted by scourge
But here's where that seems like a dodge to me--we have precisely calculated and utilized the -precession- of the proton magnetic moment, the basis of MRI technology, so why can't we figure out the rate of the inherent spin? If we know the charge on the proton, and the magnitude of its magnetic field, why can't we determine the rate of rotation?
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One way of looking at this is to say that experiments indicated that the electron behaved as if it had an intrinsic angular momentum (and an associated magnetic moment), with a z-component that could be +-hbar/2.
The problem occurs when you try to interpret this in terms of a classical spinning object, such as a sphere. As the electron looks pretty much point-like as far as anyone can determine, this would imply, to use a technical term, a humungous angular velocity. It is simpler to attribute spin angular momentum as being as much of a fundamental property of a particle as mass or charge. This may not be the answer that you were looking for, but hopefully it helps.
