A fundamental physical constant akin to the charge of the electron or
the speed of light may depend on where in the universe you are, a team
of astronomers reports. If true, that observation would overturn
scientists' basic assumption that the laws of physics are the same
everywhere in the universe. Other researchers are skeptical, however.

Back then, the team looked at the brightly shining centers of ancient
galaxies known as quasars. Light from the quasars must pass through
clouds of gas on its several-billion-year journey to Earth, and the
atoms in the gas absorb light of specific wavelengths. So the spectrum
of the light reaching Earth is missing these wavelengths and looks a bit
like a bar code. The overall shift of the lines tells researchers how
far away a gas cloud is and, hence, how long ago the light passed
through it. The relative spacing of the lines lets them estimate the
fine-structure constant at that time. Analyzing such data, Webb and
colleagues argued that the fine-structure constant was about 1 part in
100,000 smaller 12 billion years ago than it is today. That was a
radical proposition, as the laws of physics are supposed to be the same
no matter where you are in the universe.
The result was not universally accepted, however. In 2004, Patrick
Petitjean, an astronomer at the Institute for Astrophysics in Paris, and
colleagues used observations of 23 clouds from the Very Large Telescope
(VLT) on Cerro Paranal in Chile, which peers into the southern sky, and
found no discernible variation in the fine-structure constant.
1 comments:
Physics Constants Vary Between Galaxies Clusters
A. Fundamental Constant May Depend on Where in the Universe You Are
http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2011/11/fundamental-constant-may-depend-.html?ref=em&elq=ba9c572845b2462783b9fb487dfe7a08
B. From: EOTOE, Some Implications (I)
http://universe-life.com/2011/10/07/eotoe-some-implications-i/
PS1: (notes since 2005-6)
- Definitely: Dark energy and dark matter YOK! Universe's m reconverts to E at a constant rate…
- Universe accelerated expansion is per Newton's motion laws, obviously…
- Also, universe physics constants should vary, probably slightly, between galaxies clusters due to different clusters sizes...
- Also, the clusters formed by dispersion at inflation…
Dov Henis (comments from 22nd century)
http://universe-life.com/
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