items of interest

with contributions from Gregg Easterbrook, Mark E. Ellis, Linda Lantieri, John Arlidge

"Slightly Changing Physical Law is what a group of astronomers led by John Webb, of the University of New South

Wales, in Australia, think they may have found. Writing in a recent issue of the technical journal Physical Review Letters, Webb described his team's search for evidence of 'alpha' in the early universe. Alpha is, like pi, a 'transcendental number'—a natural constant that holds under all circumstances. Pi ... represents the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter, and is always and everywhere 3.14159.

"Alpha is more complicated, a numerical relationship among the charge of electrons, the speed of light and a physics value called Planck's Constant. Wherever in the universe alpha has been observed, it is always 1/137th—often spoken by physics ... as 137. Point your telescope [anywhere] in the enormity of the 40 billion known galaxies, you will observe alpha at 137. ..."

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