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.

Re:fp

[Mike Schiraldi]

first post!

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

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...

You are confusing math constants with physic ones.

[efuseekay]

Mathematical constants are "constants" in the sense that it won't change whatever the universe's physics behave. Pi, for example, is always 3.14... in a flat euclidean space (which can be defined and have nothing to do with the real universe which may not be flat, nor is it euclidean).

Physical constants, like Grav Constant (which by the way, is NOT a composite), however, are constants in the sense that they come out of a theory that needs MEASURED parameters to make it work.

The "constant" in the article refers to the fine structure constant, is a quantity that is either a constant or not dependent on which theory you believe. Currently the Standard Model (which is believed to be wrong at some level) thinks it is. If it is varying with time, like the article says it is, then the interesting thing is that it allows to speculate what the real "underlying" theory is actually is (Not the Standard Model).

YOur idea about the "Atomic constant" and "composite constant" are just plain misunderstanding of what a constant really is. There is no such jargon as "atomic constant". We use the word "fundamental constants of a theory", which is theory/physics dependent. The other constants, like Pi, are mathematical and has NOTHING to do with physics, for chrissake!

So the Greeks cannot square the circle, ever.

the paper

[bcrowell]

The paper is here.

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]

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?

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...

Let's get some perspective here

[frankie]

This is (quite literally) not the end of the world, and also not relevant to the evolution debate (although it will surely be blown out of proportion a billion-fold by shoddy journalists). Some info for the crowd:

The fine structure constant (alpha) is found by combining several other "universal constants" in such a way that all of the units (such as meters per second) cancel out. You get a dimensionless number, like pi, whose particular value (about 137) is basically built in to the universe. One formula is:

• alpha = (q_e)^2 / (E_0 * h * c)
  where
• q_e = charge of an electron
• E_0 = permittivity of space
• h = Planck's constant
• c = speed of light

So if alpha is actually not constant, any one of those items may have changed while others remained constant. And more importantly, the research points to a change of only 0.001% over the past 12 billion years. In short, warp drive this ain't.

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."

Constants not constant

[Tattva]

More and more I think that theories in physics are nothing more than successive approximations and we'll never know the true nature of existence. With some of these theories it almost feels like someone is playing a trick on us and every time we see through it a new layer of tricks is added.