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Evolving Electromagnetism?

Posted by Hemos on from the probably-not dept.

nugget writes "An article in the Sydney Morning Herald announced that scientists led by a team of NSW University astrophysicists in Australia have found evidence that one of the fundamental forces of physics, electromagnetism, has changed since the universe's creation some 14 billion years ago. This may prove what many scientists have suspected for some time. Electromagnetism may be relatively new and might have evolved sometime after the laws of physics started with the big bang. If it's correct, this is big news."

4 of 29 comments (clear)

  1. Researcher's Web Sites by martyb · · Score: 3, Informative

    Scientists who reviewed the findings have not found any obvious flaws. Professor Webb was "not surprised". His team, including Professor Victor Flambaum and PhD student Michael Murphy, both of NSW University, had "been working like hell".

    Here are links to the web sites of each of the investigators:

  2. More articles by james@rtweb.net · · Score: 4, Informative

    Also available is a New York Times article. The abstract of the paper is available for free; for the full article, pay or wait for the Aug 27th issue of Physical Review Letters.

    (If this sounds like an article submittion, it's because it was -- apparently, I got beaten to the punch by a minute or two.)

    The NYT article makes this sound like a much bigger deal. This isn't a change during the first few seconds of the universe, this is over a sagan ("billions and billions of years") or ten.

  3. Re:That is impossible. by ryants · · Score: 4, Informative
    Athiest and agnostic scientists are not the majority, they're just the loudest.
    I grow so tired of defeating morons, but oh well...

    http://www.gsreport.com/articles/art000068.html

    A survey conducted in mid-1998, reported by Edward J. Larson of the University of Georgia in a letter to the journal Nature, indicates that very few senior scientists in the United States profess a belief in God or immortality

    So much for your assertion.

    --

    Ryan T. Sammartino
    "Ancora imparo"

  4. salon coverage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Salon has a story on this, too