Constants Not Constant?

grytpype writes: "According to this story, a team of astronomers have determined (based on their observations of distant quasars) that [certain physical constants] may have been different in the far past of the universe. The discovery (if validated) is said to be good news for string theorists."

Comments

Re:fp

[Mike Schiraldi]

first post!

Yeah, but in another part of the universe, the number on your post might be something else.

FYI

[Anonymous Coward]

String theory basically means, that a char sequence must end in null char, otherwise there is a segmentation violation.

Predicted by old FORTRAN manual

[Anonymous Coward]

This was predicted by the authors of the old FORTRAN manual:

The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi ever change.

FORTRAN manual for Xerox Computers.

Reminds me of a short story...

[Masem]

Name and author long forgotten, but the story talked about how scientists had found the gravitation constant and others to be bouncing around (within 0.01% that is) in both directions, with increasing frequency for about a year, and they realized that a 'wavefront' between the old universal constants and the new ones was about to hit the earth. The story specifically focuses on a couple that retreat to an isolated island as rioters and 'end-of-the-universe' fanatics rampaged through citiss right before the wavefront hit. The wavefront does occur, but the world doens't end; the couple emerge from their location with the sky looking slightly redder, feeling a bit lighter, but no worse for wear.

Of course, the other thing this reminds me of is a TNG episode where the temporarily mortal Q is in engineering as the crew try to figure out how to deflect an asteroid landing on a planet, and Q blurts out "Why not just change the gravitational constant of the universe?"

Good news for creationists too

[al_d]

One theory that 'explains' how the universe can be only 6000 odd years old, yet some starlight can have travelled many billions of (current) light-years to reach earth is that the speeed of light is slowing down...

Re:Then let's see some evidence for creationism

[greenrd]

Of course there are. God saw it.

;)

Re:Constants Aren't So Constant!

[isomeme]

chmod 666 /etc/c

...which conveniently explains the prominence of "666" in the Christian account of how the world ends. Give us write access to c and we'll accidentally set it to zero or something in no time flat. Well, actually the amount of time depends on what we set c to...and how far away the keyboard is...now my head hurts.

Constants changing? ...

[the_ph0x`]

Great now StarFleet is gunna have to adjust all of their speedometers...*sigh*

.ph0x

But...

[kirkb]

What about 42?

Evolving value of Pi

[dpilot]

So perhaps right after the big bang, when the universe was smaller, Pi might have been tart. After enough time, in an apparently open universe, Pi will evolve into pizza, or perhaps beyond. But to think more 3-dimensionally, perhaps Pi is really cake, or perhaps orange, or beach ball.

On a different digression, last week there was a discussion about Pi violating the DMCA by containing bit combinations somewhere deep in the bits that express circumvented copyrighted art. If Pi is indeed changing, perhaps that's why TV, movies, and music just seem to be getting worse as the years go by. (Can't have anything to do with MY aging and turning into an old phart!) Wonder what the same changing Pi theory says about Microsoft products or other software contained deep in the bits.

navigation nightmare

[beanerspace]

Good thing "warp speed" or "light speed" only happens in the movies and on TV. Could you imagine the peril of traveling in space at hyper space speeds using navigational constants that aren't ? OUCH !

Nothing like having a wide-variety of standards.

Re:Constants Aren't So Constant!

[aardvarkjoe]

GOD [tapping watch]: You know, I was expecting visitors eons ago. Wonder what's holding them up?

[ls -l /etc/]

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 766 Jul 31 14:16 /etc/c

GOD: Oops.

[chmod 666 /etc/c]

Constants Aren't So Constant!

[BigBlockMopar]

that [certain physical constants] may have been different in the far past

Here's proof that constants aren't really constant:

• George Burns is dead.
• They cancelled Happy Days.
• The 3.5" diskette is dying.
• Television might soon have more than 525 scanning lines.
• My modem speed doesn't double every year anymore.
• Manual transmissions are getting hard to find in new cars.
• The Camaro is probably going to be discontinued next year.
• Some computer geeks are having a hard time finding work. [sigh]

I'm all for having write access to constants if it means that we can change the speed of light, though.

One wonders...

[daeley]

Does this mean the constant requests for my personal information (a la the NYT article linked to in the story) may have been at a different frequency in the past?

String theorists ?

[Augusto]

Does that mean that perl script kiddies hold the key to the universe's mysteries ?

We're all doomed !!! Our universed is just one big string manipulation perl hack, making it unmaintainable code soon to collapse and kill us all. AAAAARRGH !!!

I've been saying this all along...

[angst7]

Way back when I was a kid it seemed like an eternity of time existed between my birthday in June and Christmas in December. Nowadays all I seem to be saying to myself is "Seems like I *just went* to the bathroom"

flaky time constants..

You didn't know this?

[scott1853]

2 != 2. It really equals 1.999987834637462

Was that manual written by someone from Alabama?

[Anonymous Coward]

This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi ever change.

Hey, those forward-thinking guys at Xerox must have looked pretty smug when that town in Alabama legislated PI to be equal to 3. :o)

Re:Does it work in programming?

[CMiYC]

I once read in a C programming book something along the lines of, "always use CONST for a value of something you will use throughout the program. That way if you need to change this value, you only have to change it once. An example would be making 3.14 a constant named PI. That way if PI ever changes, you only need to change one line of code."

Reevaluation of constants..

[CDanek]

Maybe those Alabama folk weren't so far of with the proposed legislation changing pi to 3.0.

Re:Reevaluation of constants..

[kinko]

From FORTRAN manual for Xerox computers:

The primary purpose of the DATA statement is to give names to constants; instead of referring to pi as 3.141592653589793 at every appearance, the variable PI can be given that value with a DATA statement and used instead of the longer form of the constant. This also simplifies modifying the program, should the value of pi change.