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from the depends-on-which-way-you-look dept.
Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:
Not only does a universal constant seem annoyingly inconstant at the outer fringes of the cosmos, it occurs in only one direction, which is downright weird.
Those looking forward to a day when science's Grand Unifying Theory of Everything could be worn on a t-shirt may have to wait a little longer as astrophysicists continue to find hints that one of the cosmological constants is not so constant after all.
In a paper published in Science Advances, scientists from UNSW Sydney reported that four new measurements of light emitted from a quasar 13 billion light years away reaffirm past studies that found tiny variations in the fine structure constant.
UNSW Science's Professor John Webb says the fine structure constant is a measure of electromagnetism—one of the four fundamental forces in nature (the others are gravity, weak nuclear force and strong nuclear force).
"The fine structure constant is the quantity that physicists use as a measure of the strength of the electromagnetic force," Professor Webb says.
"It's a dimensionless number and it involves the speed of light, something called Planck's constant and the electron charge, and it's a ratio of those things. And it's the number that physicists use to measure the strength of the electromagnetic force."
The electromagnetic force keeps electrons whizzing around a nucleus in every atom of the universe—without it, all matter would fly apart. Up until recently, it was believed to be an unchanging force throughout time and space. But over the last two decades, Professor Webb has noticed anomalies in the fine structure constant whereby electromagnetic force measured in one particular direction of the universe seems ever so slightly different.
"We found a hint that that number of the fine structure constant was different in certain regions of the universe. Not just as a function of time, but actually also in direction in the universe, which is really quite odd if it's correct ... but that's what we found."
[...] If there is a directionality in the universe, Professor Webb argues, and if electromagnetism is shown to be very slightly different in certain regions of the cosmos, the most fundamental concepts underpinning much of modern physics will need revision.
"Our standard model of cosmology is based on an isotropic universe, one that is the same, statistically, in all directions," he says.
"That standard model itself is built upon Einstein's theory of gravity, which itself explicitly assumes constancy of the laws of Nature. If such fundamental principles turn out to be only good approximations, the doors are open to some very exciting, new ideas in physics."
[...] Professor Webb's team believe this is the first step towards a far larger study exploring many directions in the universe, using data coming from new instruments on the world's largest telescopes. New technologies are now emerging to provide higher quality data, and new artificial intelligence analysis methods will help to automate measurements and carry them out more rapidly and with greater precision.
-- submitted from IRC
Journal Reference:
Michael R. Wilczynska, John K. Webb, Matthew Bainbridge, et al. Four direct measurements of the fine-structure constant 13 billion years ago [open], Science Advances (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aay9672)
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:07AM (5 children)
Hows about you jackasses try to find a reason you might be getting unexpected results that don't require a change in the fundamental laws of nature first? Yes, they may be wrong. It's a whole lot more likely that your ass is wrong than that every physicist to come before you was wrong though.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:35AM (4 children)
But maybe this will let them get rid of "dark energy".
FWIW, the Copernican Hypothesis is definitely false, because when you look in certain directions you see big voids, and when you look in other directions you see lots of massive galaxies. How significant that is isn't clear. Some have calculated that it's not very significant, but I haven't heard of any reviewed papers making that claim.
Now whether this should affect the fine structure constant is another question. And I'm not competent to have an opinion.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Thursday April 30 2020, @03:56AM (3 children)
Oh there's plenty of stuff that's been wrong in the past and will be wrong in the future. It's just a dipshit move to go there with fundamental assumptions before you've ruled out every other testable explanation. When did science turn into clickbait?
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:23AM (1 child)
He didn't start with fundamental assumptions.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Monday May 04 2020, @11:55AM
Sure he did. He may have checked the blindingly obvious (machine or human error) but as soon as he ruled those out he went straight to thinking fundamental laws of reality needed rewriting. It's generally better to rule out the blindingly obvious and then ask yourself "Okay, WTF could be going on here that doesn't require rewriting all of physics?"
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Booga1 on Thursday April 30 2020, @04:27AM
It started as soon as their funding depended on grants. That, and corporations buying results instead of actual studies.