Fundamental Constant Possibly Inconsistent 317
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."
Re:Electron Constants not Constant??!! (Score:2, Interesting)
(not in the habit of checking Wikipedia for movie details
Intelligent Design? (Score:3, Interesting)
String theory makes my head hurt.
Hmm... (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Hang on a second... (Score:5, Interesting)
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
Re:Does this mean (Score:5, Interesting)
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).
Mind-blowing... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:.002% change (Score:2, Interesting)
It turns out that quantum mechanically, this results in the discrete energies of an electron in an atom to be dependent on the mass as well, through the mass to charge ration e/m. Experiments observing atomic spectra can, and have, measured this to great accuracy.
For a more fundamental defninition of what mass is, we can work it out in terms of fundamental constants, whose constancy, at least for now, has not been challenged: sqrt(h*c
Re:"If true" (Score:3, Interesting)
But if its true its still pretty neat and its like water in the desert for the field of post-QM/GR theories.
Constant?...sounds like a Global Variable (Score:2, Interesting)
To me it sounds like these values aren't actually constants but more like global variables. No matter where you are, at any one time the value is the same. So it is constant with respect to position, motion, etc. However, across time the value can change... but it will change universally so that it remains "constant" (in the sense that I mentioned before hand).
Of course this is unfortunate because this means any sufficiently sophisticated simulator will require global variables to run. Dijkstra will be aghast when in the future it is discovered that the universe requires "goto"s too!
Re:.002% change (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:This has nothing to do with Heisenberg... (Score:3, Interesting)