May 3, 2006
MEN OF CONSTANT SORROW:
Not-so-constants? (Robert C. Cowen, 5/04/06, CS Monitor)
If further research were to confirm that any of the constants is variable, physicists would face the stark realization that their understanding of how the physical universe works is fundamentally flawed. These latest results are uncertain. But they show that the tedious effort to refine what already are highly precise measurements is worthwhile.The constants in question include: the speed of light in empty space, a constant that's used to determine gravitational force; the fine-structure constant that fixes the strength of electromagnetic forces; and the ratio of the mass of a proton to the mass of an electron.
It doesn't matter that their metaphors are bunk as long as you can get the equations to work most of the time. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 3, 2006 6:30 PM
The cosmologists problem is that just because all their equations work now, this says they can't be sure they'd work way back then (or long time from now). But the real question then becomes, if they can vary in time, and time is a dimension just like space, can they vary from place to place? So much for "universal."
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at May 3, 2006 7:57 PMIf true, this would call into question the common assumption of uniformity in all cosmological analyses. Note that both relativistic and quantum constants may vary. This may mean that the assumption of "standard candles" used for distance determination and their associated measured red shifts are both in error. Nor can measuring a variation over as short a period as 10 years be safely extrapolated back billions of years without having some theory that accounts for these variations.
Posted by: jd watson at May 3, 2006 8:10 PMThey're just worried they'll get put with the Social Sciences.
Posted by: Robert Mitchell Jr. at May 3, 2006 9:48 PMOJ operates the blog solely to craft his custom headlines.
Posted by: Palmcroft at May 4, 2006 12:26 PM