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

Hmm this is big

[rdslater596]

Well this is big, but not in the way most people will think. The constant they speak of, alpha, is the fine structure constant which is very important in fundamental high energy physics and cosomology. Its also important to note that since alpha = electron charge ^2 / (planks constant x speed o light) that any one of the three could be the culprit in changing or it could be some eacky quasar problem since we don't really know what quasars are for sure.

I doubt this affects General Relativity very much because GR is a non-quantum theory, while alpha is a quantum mechancis issue. Of course this may help develop a quantum gravity theory (Special relativity is different and completely unaffected, its main idea is that everything is relative and is unaffected by whatever alpha and c and the electron charge are).

In addition the paper does call for further study, and of course the CURRENT universe in unchanged (sorry still no FTL). However, this is an insight at the very fundamental levels of quantum mechnanics which is very closely tied to cosmology. String theorys and all of that ilk may be able to acount for this but the day to day shmoe will probably not know the difference. Still it is an important result that begs for more study and of course the bloody theory people will be all over this (It doesn't show I'm experiemtal branch does it). What this does boil down to is a insight into the fundamental interactions between the smallest bits of the universe. Of course we probably are going to need quite a few more before we sort out Grand Unified Theory, but this may be one of the big steps along the way.

One last caveat. Alpha also changes with energy, and as one causes more energetic reactions (like those done at fermilab) Alpha will increase. This could be a source for explanation, but I am only speculating. Theres a lot of wild stuff at the top physics levels going on.

This could be interesting.

[jd]

If only the Greeks had lived far -enough- in the past, they could have squared the circle with ease!

Seriously, I'm a little skeptical. This reminds me far too much of maths teachers trying to convince me that the shortest distance is not a straight line, on a sphere. (It =IS=, from the perspective of the line. It's not the line's fault that stupid teachers can't seperate the observer from the observed.)

Now, some "constants" are composite. The Gravitational Constant, for example, is not a simple value, but the product of a number of values. It's entirely possible that such composite values will vary, under different conditions, even if any given constant within them did not. (eg: Different ratios.)

In other words, those "composite" constants might not be "Constants" in the accepted sense. They might merely be static, under "normal" conditions.

Not So Brief Note: For the purpose of this post, I'm defining "Composite" Constants as those constants which exist, in the underlying model, as a product/sum of two or more component Constants, and which have no existance independent of those component Constants. Since they are defined as expressions, I can accept that such Composite Constants could actually vary.

An Atomic Constant is one which exists in and of itself. The simplest possible description of itself -is- itself. Since these aren't defined in relation to anything else, it would not make sense to me for these to vary with time or environment. There's nothing within them to vary.

Pi, I believe, is an Atomic constant. The mere fact that you can compute Pi to any accuracy, and/or computer any given digit within it, indicates that it's not going to change in a hurry.

The Feigenbaum Number (the ratio between period doublings in a chaotic system that is in an oscilating state) is, IMHO, much more interesting, in that it is not at all clear from the system whether it is composite or atomic. Because it exists in an abstract, mathematical sense, I'm going to guess that it's atomic, in which case I believe it won't vary.

Re:time dialation

[Anonymous Coward]

There are such effects, and they are responsible for cosmological redshift and time dilation.

This was published in the 1960s and in the 70s

[Anonymous Coward]

Scientific American published a paper in the 1960s about how G was decreasing. It was written by Tom Van Flandern, who used observations he made at the US naval Laboratory of the occoltation of stars by the moon, and found (over a 15 year period) a small trend that was either a systemic error in the telescope macinery or eveidence that G was decreasing.

His work was ridiculed because fossil evidence shows no eveidence for his decrease.

In the 1970s Michael Macarthur published in a New Zealand Amateur Astronomical journal a paper in which he demonstrated that if the decrease in G obeyed a hyberbolic law then at the time the fossils were being laid down the decrese in G would be so slow as to be unobservable by that method.

I've seen some of Macarthur's later work, in which he comes to the same conclusions as Dirac does. In particular, he arrives at conclusions Hawking and Penrose arrive at, and has shown a physical basis for the Principle of Equivalence.

His major problem in getting his latest work published is actually Van Flandern, who seems to have lost the plot after being so soundly trashed - he is now a Flying Saucer Conspiracy Theorist. Any work that uses his (very early) observations gets shouted down so fast.

Re:Evolution vs. Creation debate

[Mr. Barky]

It's one part in 100,000 over 15 billion years or so. For nearly all intents and purposes, these are constant. The error in measurement of the age of the earth is much greater than 1/100,000.

Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep

[Nova Express]

In Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, the universal anthrapamorphic principle is thrown out the window, as it postulates that the universal constants in other parts of the galaxy aren't the same as they are around here. In fact, outside "the slow zone" (where we currently reside) it is possible to travel faster than the speed of light...

Theory, experiment and error

[Caid Raspa]

How can you claim someone is lying when we are discussing theories?

By definition: a scientific theory makes predictions that are based on some assuptions. It can be proven false by measuring the effect it predicts and finding discrepancies between observations and theory. So, a scientific theory can be falsified, for example the Newtonian Gravitation Theory was known to be wrong as it did not predict the orbit of Mercury absolutely correctly. General relativity could explain the difference, and thus was considered to be closer to the truth. However, both do a good job in e.g. predicting the orbit of the Moon.

Religious theories in general do not provide predictions or arguments that could be verified or falsified. (Of course there are 'world-will-end-next-sunday' predictions, but who takes them seriously). How could you verify claims such as: 'If you kill someone, you'll go to hell after you die' or 'Jesus is the Son of God'

Creationists are people who believe strongly that Bible is the absolute truth of God, by God and for His People. Some scientific theories have made predictions that are based on assumptions which contradict the Bible, and are thus being seen as an attack against the God. The creationists are now making what they think is science by producing their own theories that also explain all the observed facts, including the Bible, which they think is the absolute truth. However, they do not make their own predictions on results of measurements, they just explain the existing ones.

One characteristic of scientific measurements is that they always contain statistical uncertainties, often referred to as 'error' or 'accuracy'. However, I have never met a creationist who would give a value on the accuracy of the facts extracted from the Bible.

For a creationist, the Bible is the word of absolute truth, meaning that it should be absolutely correct. If it is not, it contains some inaccuracy, and thus their God, who has dictated it word by word, is imperfect. It seems that creationists do no longer believe that Bible is a sufficient base for their life, as science has shown that some claims of the Bible are not completely correct.

They produce artificial 'scientific' extensions to the biblical base of their life. In my opinion, this means that the creationists are trying to explain and extend the absolute truth (or what they think is the absolute truth) with relative truths, that are changing and falsifiable. I'm not that familiar with christianity, but for a muslim, this would mean 'Shirk', or mixing Allah with something else. Shirk is always punished by eternal damnation, and in an islamic society, it is punished also by death. I think creationists are dangerously close to that.

The Buddhists (including myself) have a nice workaround for the conflict between science and religion, but that is another story. If you are interested in that, use google.