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What's in a constant Because the frequencies of absorption spectra depend on various parameters, the quasar observations are sometimes interpreted as indicating that light was faster in the past, or that the electron had a weaker charge. But theorist Carlos Martins of the University of Cambridge tells LiveScience that this is not entirely correct. "It doesn't make sense to talk about a varying speed of light or electron charge," he says. This is because the values of these parameters include units that might change. The speed of light, for instance, might be measured one day with a ruler and a clock. If the next day the same measurement gave a different answer, no one would be able to tell just from the data if it was the speed of light, the ruler's length or the clock's rate of ticking that had changed. To avoid this confusion, scientists use dimensionless constants — pure numbers that are ratios of measured quantities. In the case of the shifts in Murphy's data, the relevant dimensionless constant is the fine structure constant (often designated by the Greek letter alpha), which characterizes the strength of the electromagnetic force. The researchers found that alpha was smaller in the past. Other "famous numbers" would also not be immune to the vagaries of time. "You would expect variation in all the fundamental constants," Murphy says. It was therefore not entirely a surprise when — in April of this year — Patrick Petitjean of the Astrophysical Institute of Paris and his collaborators detected a change in the proton-electron mass ratio from molecular absorption lines in quasar spectra. The mass variation can be interpreted as the strong nuclear force's coupling constant being larger in the early universe, Petitjean says. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,203180,00.html The above article is the reason why numbers are used to determine the definition of a Finite or Infinite Universe. |
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