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Fundamental Constant Possibly Inconsistent

Posted by Zonk on Fri Apr 21, 2006 11:29 AM
from the those-wacky-constants dept.
Math Science
dylanduck writes "Cosmologists have begun thinking that yet another fundamental constant of nature is, er, not constant. The constant in question is the ratio of a proton's mass to that of an electron. It governs the strong nuclear force but there's no explanation for why that ratio should be constant. If true it would provide support for string theory, which predicts extra spatial dimensions." From the article: "Researchers at the Free University in Amsterdam in the Netherlands and the European Southern Observatory in Chile discovered the variation in mu. They did it by comparing the spectrum of molecular hydrogen gas in the laboratory to what it was in quasars 12 billion light years away. The spectrum depends on the relative masses of protons and electrons in the molecule."
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  • Thus proving once and for all (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2006, @11:31AM (#15174423)
    ...that God is a woman.
  • Haven't I heard that one before?

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089869/ [imdb.com]

  • Apparently, the meaning of "constant" (Score:5, Funny)

    by Snarfangel (203258) on Friday April 21 2006, @11:37AM (#15174469) Homepage
    ...isn't constant, either. Perhaps we can rename them "fundamental variables."

  • Hang on a second... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by iainl (136759) on Friday April 21 2006, @11:38AM (#15174480)
    ...if the ratio is changing, doesn't that mean that either electrons or protons (probably both) have changed mass?

    How the hell does that work?
    • It just means the Proton should probably cut back on fast food. It sure as hell changed my mass considerably!

    • Re:Hang on a second... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by PiMuNu (865592) on Friday April 21 2006, @11:53AM (#15174622)

      Don't forget the proton is a composite of quarks. So the mass of the proton is a function of the mass of the quarks and the binding energy. A hack but E=mc^2, so m(proton) = m(quarks) - (binding energy)/c^2. The binding energy changes if the strengths of the forces that bind it change. This means that a change in the electromagnetic force (e.g. changing alpha fine structure constant) or the strong force will change the mass also. Of course, the mass of the electrons or quarks could have changed as well :P

  • Intelligent Design? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RSquaredW (969317) on Friday April 21 2006, @11:40AM (#15174507)
    Hmm, wasn't one of the arguments for intelligent design that the fundamental constants had to be "just right" for the universe to exist? If the shifts of other dimensions causes shifts in our universal constants...another nail in the necessity-of-God argument's coffin?

    String theory makes my head hurt.
    • I saw the argument coming but I was really hoping no one would bring ID/Evo into this.

      However I was seeing the case from the other side as 'proof' that if such fundemental scientific principles can be shown to be inaccurate, how much 'faith' can we have in the theory of Evolution which is laregely based on much less demonstrable certainties that the fields of physics and math.

      Either way, I say just screw it and wait till you're dead. It's the only way to know who's right for sure anyway.

      • Re:Intelligent Design? (O/T) (Score:5, Insightful)

        by iamlucky13 (795185) on Friday April 21 2006, @02:28PM (#15176229)

        First of all, to stay a little bit on topic, the theoretically observed change in mu is extremely small. Physicists don't know why mu should be about 1836 instead of about 1836.5 or 3 or 11,296,428. My understanding is (and I am not an expert on this), that really small change in mu like we're talking about here wouldn't significantly affect the universe and it would still look largely like it does, but somewhat small change in mu, like an order of magnitude would, a lot. This bugs physicists because they don't know why it is what it is. Why do we have the universe we have instead of something drastically different like one that collapsed or blew apart 10 minutes after the Big Bang? The only answer they can offer is the anthropic principle: It is the way it is because if it weren't, we wouldn't be here to notice.

        The existence of God does not hinge on the constancy of mu. This doesn't even disprove intelligent design, which is as bad from a theological perspective as it is from a scientific perspective, being vain in both schools. Several prominent Catholic theologians have stated as much. The perplexing question of why fundamental particles are the way they are and therefore allow us to exist does not constitute a proof of God's existence, but they are rather suggestive.

        For the record, I think a brief discussion of creation concepts would be appropriate in social studies (as part of a survey of religions) or in philosophy classes (the study of being) in public schools, but not in science. I want to point out that if God created the phenomena which allows and upon which we base our science, it's unlikely that we would be able to prove or disprove His existence directly through science.

        The concept of "Faith" was a magnificant and powerful creation--a tool that can allow a few people to control millions--and I'd like to meet the amazingly talented P/R man who figured out how to tag such a horrid, evil concept as "Good".

        Question Everything

        I wasn't going to reply, but it seemed worthwhile to Question this statement. Who is controlled here? The billions of faithful who find meaning in life? In what way are we controlled? By adherence to principles that are conducive to the betterment of mankind like "love your neighbor as yourself" and "Thou shalt not kill?" What is the gain for these scheming, evil leaders and their P/R man? You don't exactly see a lot of priests pimping it up with 22" rims on their Lincolns and an escort on each arm. Celibacy, the difficulties of working with a faith-community, itchy robes, and a badly off-key choir...now there's a good reason to cook up a religion. I'm willing to guarantee you the overwhelming majority of religious leaders really do believe in the faith they profess. Yes there is a large degree of misdirection and a few unscrupulous groups that are nothing more than pyramid schemes or printing companies, but the basic precepts of most religions out there are founded, promoted, and executed with good intent.

        • The first part of your post is good...but the second one about faith leaves a lot to be desired.

          The billions of faithful who find meaning in life?

          Actually no one finds meaning in life from religion...because religion dictates that this life is just a test for the afterlife. People usually find meaning in life when they get rid of religions, i.e superstitions, witchcraft and the like.

          In what way are we controlled?

          Religion makes people pathetic command receptors. They await like sheep for an orde

        • I wasn't going to reply, but it seemed worthwhile to Question this statement. Who is controlled here?

          Who is being controlled by faith??? Are you seriously asking?

          Okay, Let's see...

          Terrorists seeking virgins in the afterlife.
          Christians voting for Bush.
          Christians bombing abortion clinics and/or murdering abortion doctors.
          Any religious followers donating to these filthy-rich preachers.
          Catholics agreeing to avoid birth control.
          Catholic priests avoiding sex (added by the church so they wouldn't leave churches t
        • How does God tell us anything? Have you talked to him?

          As for what you can really observe, the bible is the word of god is it not?

          Where in the bible does it say to question anything? Also, if you are questioning everything, how do you know the bible is the word of god?

          In fact, the bible was written by humans and the books were selected by a power-hungry church. The sections chosen were chosen specifically because they had the least conflicts and supported the church the most.

          I don't really worry about weat

  • Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)

    by PiMuNu (865592)

    It's interesting that they think the ratio effects the strong force. Electrons don't see the strong force, so I'm not sure that this is true - anyone know any better?

    The result is accurate to 3.5 sigma - so (possibly) good to about 95 %. Based on a new model of H2 molecule, not sure how well verified it is. I suspect any fool could make any non-standard model measurement fit with string theory so I wouldn't read too much into that.

  • Being an amature scientist (engineer by profession) I always wonder why the laws in physics be constant as well ? Never got any satisfactory (and comprehensible) answer yet. To certain extent, it is equally important as 'changing' constants as well.

    Also I would like to know little more about the error analysis here. A claim like 0.002% should be carefully checked to make sure about the measurement limitations etc.

    Readers are directed to another good article [swin.edu.au] (not flooded with scientific jargon).

    • Being an amature scientist (engineer by profession) I always wonder why the laws in physics be constant as well ?

      If the laws of physics are changing, there must be some law governing this change. If that law is changing there must be some other law governing that change. At some point it has to stop.

  • In other news.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mechcommander (784124) <Ionix9&hotmail,com> on Friday April 21 2006, @11:45AM (#15174554) Journal
    Pi = 3.
    • Pi = 3.

      Maybe where you come from, but in California, it is 3.

      Recent discoveries in the legal profession have left scientists, many of whom still linger romantically in the Newtonian world, scrambling to catch up in the field of New Causality. In a case last month, a judge in Sacramento ruled in favor of changing the value of pi, thus acquitting a tire manufacturer of making tires that were not fully round. An appeal by scientists was thrown out for lack of evidence when the small courtroom could not physic

    • Re:In other news.. (Score:5, Funny)

      by ameoba (173803) on Friday April 21 2006, @12:43PM (#15175117) Homepage
      Arbitrarily changing universal constants can be a bad thing.

      I remember one time, in my youth, while partaking of illicit mind-altering substances, looking at a window. More specifically, a small piece of stained-glass hanging from the window. Hanging by a suction cup.

      A circular suction cup.

      This piece of stained glass had been hanging on that very window for years.

      Deep in thought, looking at this stained glass, I thought to myself "You know, if I was God, I'd probably round off pi to a million decimal places or so - it wouldn't really effect anything and it would make things much simpler". At which point, this stained glass, hanging from a circular suction cup, which had been there, unmoving, for years, due to a failure in the circular suction cup, fell to the ground and shattered.

      I learned my lesson - don't mess with universal constants.

  • Provides evidence for string theory? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by davidoff404 (764733) on Friday April 21 2006, @11:46AM (#15174561)
    Where the hell did they get that from? String theory is fully compatible with the idea that the constants in nature are actually constant. After all, string theory has been developed to fit the data and nobody has been able to provide any evidence that this is not the case in the real world. On the contrary, changing fundamental constants would require more finessing of string theory in order to fit the data.

    And yes, before you start, I know what I'm talking about.
    • Of course string theory is cnsistant with a constant mu. Any theory must be consistant with current observations. The point here is that conventional QM theory is inconsistant with a variable mu while string theory might be. This lends weight to accepting string theory as a more accurate discription of reality as it more correctly explains this observed phonominia.

      JFMILLER
      • I think a bigger issue is that ANYTHING can be compatible with string theory.

        This isn't even remotely correct. The easiest way to see this is to consider bosonic string theory and look at the manner in which the Virasoro algebra constrains physical states. It most certainly does not allow anything to be true. Quite the opposite in fact, it places heavy constraints on what is and is not allowed in a consistent string theory.

  • Some comments (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2006, @11:48AM (#15174575)
    Historically speaking, there have been many claims in the past about various fundamental constants varying with time, and pretty much all of them have eventually not been corroborated by independent experimental groups. So take this with a large grain of salt.

    Also, with regard to string theory... well, string theory is more or less compatible with practically any scenario you can think of, because it's so flexible (to phrase it charitably). Any "new physics" can generally be claimed to "support" some string-inspired model. This does not in itself constitute strong evidence for string theory (since you can cook up specific non-string models too).

    Here is a link to one string theorist's (opinionated) blog regarding this issue [blogspot.com]. He notes that this ratio being constant is also consistent with string theory (and is what he believes is likely to be true).
  • and says ....
    "I think I have lost an electron!"

    Another atom asks..
    "Are you sure?"

    The atom says
    "I'm positive!"

    I'll be here all week, enjoy the veal.....

  • The one true constant in the universe (Score:3, Funny)

    by DrugCheese (266151) on Friday April 21 2006, @12:04PM (#15174742)
    is change.

  • The PRL paper (Score:3, Informative)

    by jlkelley (35651) on Friday April 21 2006, @12:08PM (#15174785)
    For those interested in the actual paper (Phys. Rev. Lett. 96), the PDF is available on the researcher's publications page:

    http://www.nat.vu.nl/~wimu/PUBS.html [nat.vu.nl]

  • FORTRAN (Score:5, Funny)

    by Detritus (11846) on Friday April 21 2006, @12:57PM (#15175298) Homepage
    And they said that the ability to change the values of constants at run-time was a bug. Ha! Take that, you quiche eaters.

  • What is mass? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by wanerious (712877) on Friday April 21 2006, @01:03PM (#15175375) Homepage
    The results are potentially interesting, though I'm initially skeptical of *any* measurement of phenomena back at this redshift claiming accuracy to some tiny fraction of a percent. And, to be picky, astronomers virtually never say that an object is "12 billion ly away" --- we usually refer to their "location" via the redshift number, as this is easy and unambiguous.

    But a change in the ratio of their masses might shed some light on exactly what mass is to begin with. Yes, it's the ability to curve space, and also the resistance to being accelerated. But never mind the p/e ratio being fixed, no one really understands why the individual values are what they are to begin with.

    For example, something that always gets me is the muon. Identical to the electron in virtually every way (charge, apparent point-like non-structure, lepton) except is has a mass roughly 207 times as great. Why? What does it have 207 times more of than the electron does to make it 207 times more efficient at curving space? What kind of goo is there that makes it 207 times more resistant to acceleration? And if it's truly a fundamental particle, as we suspect for leptons, why 207-point-something?

    It nags at me.

    • Re:Does this mean (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday April 21 2006, @11:56AM (#15174657)
      And yet you have no idea where the clitoris is.

    • Re:Does this mean (Score:5, Interesting)

      by maxwell demon (590494) on Friday April 21 2006, @12:15PM (#15174847) Journal
      that I face the risk that the first 100 digits of PI that I have memorized could change, and the knowledge becomes useless?

      Well, that was true since Einstein: The value of pi as you learned it is only valid in Euklidean (flat) space, and our space is Riemannian (curved). However, to your relieve, the Riemannian space is locally Euclidean, so if you restrict yourself to a small enough volume, your 100 digits are accurate again. Unless you get into trouble with quantum physics (I'm now too lazy to calculate if you could get 100 digits of pi right on Earth without getting close to the Planck length).

    • Ten Minutes to Wapner (Score:4, Funny)

      by Valdrax (32670) on Friday April 21 2006, @02:02PM (#15175998)
      This is actually true, I do know the first 100 digits by heart.

      Out of curiosity, are you an excellent driver?

    • Re:"If true" (Score:3, Interesting)

      by NichG (62224)
      Well, it'd be an example of a piece of experimental evidence in a field where basically you can't test anything because of the lack of experimental evidence. If that mass ratio varies, then this also means we can measure how it varies, and each theory can make a prediction and... I suspect they bring up string theory because thats the one everyone knows, not because this particular piece of evidence gives support to string theory only. But on the other hand, I can't really say off the top of my head which o
    • Why can't other constants, like say pi, be variable as well?

      Pi is not a physical constant. It is the result of a mathematical expression. It can't change.
      • Ah yes, you use the force to describe the mass. I am familiar with those experiment. But, they relied on macroscopic force to describe mass which may be problematic when applied to a single electron and the spectra which come from the discrete energy level that arises from the Hamiltonian that assumes mass is invariant (which it probally is compared to the potential). So again, what is mass? You mention distance which in our own perception is the separation between two points. How do you phyically describe

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