[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

PING!

[April Lexington]

The units in which the original measurements were made cancel each other out and the result is 1/137.036, regardless of the measuring system you used in the first place.

Oh. Wow. I was afraid of that...

[April Lexington]

He found that, the farther out he looked, the smaller alpha seemed to be.

Wow. It is worse than I thought...

[April Lexington]

Dr Webb first conducted such a study almost a decade ago, using 76 quasars observed with the Keck telescope in Hawaii.

Not only that, but he was unable to detect even a hint of birth certificate anywhere in Hawaii!

[April Lexington]

That may sound trivial. But any detectable deviation from zero would mean that the laws of physics were different there (and then) from those that pertain in the neighbourhood of the Earth.

Yes. They actually elect Republicans...

[redpoll]

Understanding the way the universe really works does not diminish my faith in God. In fact, it helps confirm it. So thanks for posting this.

[DBrow]

It would be amusing if what was changing was pi.

[Perdogg]

Bertrand Russell is foiled again.

[razorback-bert]

On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics.

Now, I need to go to a strip club to think about this.

[eclecticEel]

Wow, one of the best written pop physics articles I’ve ever come across.

[November 2010]

Made me think of William Sidis’ physics, where he concieved of different areas of space having different physical laws. I think he believed time ran backwards in areas. I don’t think so. It would be hard to crawl into the womb at the end of my life . . .

[Brilliant]

If history is any clue, it will not turn out to be so mysterious, and will probably be so simple even a child can understand it.

But for now, it’s seemingly impossible to understand.

[mmercier]

as far as i have understood the universe or multiverse is so vast that every possible variation of every possible combination of variables and possibilities squares from each result ad infinitum.

sounds like a load of crap, but we see a hundred billion times a hundred billion stars out there with our current state of the art crappy optics.

some figure that from any of those hundred billion periphery points the numbers will exponentially increase. in practical application this means that this planet exists in exact form in millions of places at millions of times; as does everything ever observed by us, or others, or none. it is that vast... and expanding @100,000 miles a second. sux, hu.

[TChad]

Fascinating.

[ALPAPilot]

No wonder we have climate change. It’s not greenhouse gases it’s the fine structure constant. If I was a climate nazi this would be worth at least a million dollar grant.

[exDemMom]

I remember having an argument with someone because I stated that we have no basis on which to believe the physical constants as we measure them here on Earth would have exactly the same values if measured elsewhere. I was of the opinion, however, that, no matter their origin, light and particles would be distorted as they enter our section of space, in such a way as to mask the fact that they originated where physical constants are subtly different. The person I was arguing with insisted that physical constants would be the same everywhere.

If what these physicists measured was accurate, then the change of physical constants across space (which I had hypothesized) may not be as resistant to measurement as I had thought.

[Kevmo]

pinging some of my favorite cosmologists.

I’ve been pointing out for years now that the fine structure constant is not a constant.

[The Comedian]

Constant-gardener ping.

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[FourPeas]

This thread typifies why I like FreeRepublic so much.