New findings bolster the hypothesis that our region of the universe is uniquely suited for life. This controversial evidence suggests that one of nature’s fundamental constants may vary across different cosmic regions, challenging the long-held belief in the universality of physical laws as stated by Einstein’s equivalence principle. John Webb, a researcher from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia, who leads this study, remarked, “This finding was a real surprise to everyone” [2].
A particularly striking aspect of this research is the discovery that the variation in this constant exhibits a directional bias, creating what is termed a “preferred direction” or axis in the universe. This concept contradicts notions established over a century ago with Einstein’s special theory of relativity, which posited that physical laws are consistent throughout space [2].
Central to this investigation is the fine structure constant, denoted as alpha (α), which quantifies the strength of interactions between light and matter. A decade ago, Webb utilized data from the Keck Observatory in Hawaii to analyze light from distant quasars. His findings indicated that α was marginally lower when the light was emitted approximately 12 billion years ago compared to its current value on Earth [1][2].
In a recent extension of this research, Webb’s colleague Julian King analyzed data from the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, focusing on a different section of the sky. King’s analysis revealed that α appears slightly larger in regions farther from Earth, suggesting spatial rather than temporal variation in its value [1][2].
The observed differences in α are minuscule—around one-millionth of its value in our vicinity—but they imply a structured variation across space, resembling a dipole pattern akin to that of a bar magnet. This alignment nearly coincides with a stream of galaxies moving toward the universe’s edge but does not correlate with another unexplained phenomenon known as the “axis of evil,” observed in cosmic microwave background radiation [2][9].
If these results are validated, they could elucidate why α has a finely tuned value conducive to chemistry and life. For instance, an increase of just 4% in α could hinder star formation processes necessary for producing carbon, thereby rendering life as we know it impossible [2][9].
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[1] https://www.haverford.edu/kinsc-undergraduate-science-research-symposium/news/variation-fine-structure-constant-due-spatial
[2] https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn19429-laws-of-physics-may-change-across-the-universe/
[3] https://hal.science/hal-01351232/document
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participatory_anthropic_principle
[5] https://arxiv.org/abs/1608.04593v1
[6] https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/vfd8oi/the_finetuning_argument_attempts_to_explain_the/
[7] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant
[8] https://www.space.com/universe-expansion-could-be-a-mirage
[9] https://www.technologyreview.com/2010/08/26/200849/fine-structure-constant-varies-with-direction-in-space-says-new-data/
[10] https://www.reddit.com/r/FF06B5/comments/19erk3s/some_theories_about_the_finestructure_constant/
17 comments
now all you have to do is travel a few million light years and look back at earth to see if this is relative or absolute.
Science all from the start has been very dumb. U cant count on one hand how much bs they have told the public the last years.
Yeah! Dumb scientists. Where do they get off, looking in to space and stuff?
Really? Science has given us so many things. Internet; computers; bicycles, cars, trains, busses, jets, and planes; many of the materials in your house; the farming, processing, transport and storage processes which give you food and water; electricity; artificial light; tv; radio; drugs to kill pain during tooth repair; heart transplants; artificial satellites; roads;
To be fair, he didn’t call scientists dumb, just science. T’was I being facetious, that called them dumb.
Most of those inventions you listed, Xeno, were the result of work done in the 19th century and very early 20th century “science.” (Yes, even TV. Although, I doubt satellites were thought of much outside the world of sci fi, which was around in places like London and Paris in the 19th century.) Actually, it wasn’t so much “science” as we know it today, but more like Edison’s trial and error. They were the result of individual men tinkering in their personal labs or whatever. It wasn’t the result of what is called and what we have today, “big science.”
The hugely funded science ventures of today may be an improvement on previous discoveries. But, they may not, as in the too obvious case of the pharmaceutical industry. And, I doubt, seriously, the food industry’s chemical additions to food are really worth it. And, pesticides? Fertilizers? Hormone additives in meat and milk (via the cow)? You know, the automobile is wonderful, but it still it has major drawbacks also. (I mean besides keeping us from walking, a detriment to our health, or riding a trolley – a far better “invention,” I think.)
No, scientists aren’t “dumb,” but they do often follow the herd, unfortunately. Perhaps this is why scientists do treasure creativity, but it appears it is in short supply.
Science, it seems to me, is educated trial and error. I used examples i thought people could relate to, and while you are correct about the first one, improvements in our TV experience have continued to evolve with new discoveries in materials science, electrical engineering, digital signal processing, fiber optics, wireless, etc. I think the same is true in other areas.
Without some pesticides and preservatives, and factory farms, I don’t think we could live in cities in the numbers we do since there would not be enough food.
Of course, I’m hoping we will get to the point soon where we can cut our individual needs for food and water by 75% by genetically adding photosynthesis and moisture extraction from the air to the things our skin does for us.
Jeez Xeno, what’s next on your list? Hibernation? Perhaps we could invite the birds and the bees into our pro-creative activities?
There will be protests and lawsuits as with stem cell research, but we are on the path where we will modify ourselves directly by borrowing traits from other peoples DNA and then, yes, from other animals and even plants, fungi, and artificial DNA. GM people.
I know this topic, bizarrely, came up in the Abi and Brittany Hensel postings, but don’t you think there may be a danger of creating new species of human by GMing them. Sounds like the end for poor ol’ homosapien.
What will we look like in 5,000 years? Perhaps like aliens…
I don’t know about you, but I intend to look as young and dapper as I do today. Maybe a slight greying at the temples though.
What I intended to say is that a lot of the things we often attribute to modernity and the 20th century were invented in the 19th century. From the washing machine, the refrigerator, computer to even the TV were 19th century inventions. And, the 20th century merely built on these. It doesn’t seem to me that the science in the 20th century is as creative as that of the 1800s.
Let’s talk farming – yes, I know, a lot people think much as you. And, this line of thought it isn’t without the efforts of several industries. But, people have been living in cities, maybe not as large, for a few thousand years now.
But, there has been for some time an entirely different line of thinking concerning farming, such as growing crops without the need of industrial products – industrial products, such as fertilizers, that are responsible for increasing number and size of “dead zones” along the coasts of all the world’s continents now. And, pesticides? Where does one begin to talk about the problems pesticides have caused and are causing? Again, there is also some quite old thinking in the realm of “pest management,” which is a kind ecologically friendly method of dealing with farm pests.
And, of course, these farming techniques can be traced to indigenous farmers everywhere – farmers who were ignored for decades by colonists, modernists and industrialists throughout the world. Ironically enough, however, some modern “scientific” researchers (in the past 10 years or so) are becoming increasingly aware that indigenous farmers may have had the methods all along for better agriculture production for our modern future. In other words, scientists are delving into old knowledge to solve problems of the present and our the future.
To evaluate science, to say whether it’s “dumb” or not, I think we must not look at only the specific results of scientific work, the inventions, but also their consequences. I don’t think we should take science out of its context and separate it from its bedfellow, the industrial revolution. But, so many times we’ve read, for example, nuclear energy can be used in good and bad ways, to heat homes or make bombs. But “Three Mile Island” and “Chernobyl,” as only two examples of many, weren’t the names of bombs. Plastic polymers are wonderful 20th century inventions (I think) but, besides forming the major part of the enormous garbage patches floating in both Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, its chemicals are found in all our bodies and in animals from the arctic to the antarctic. As I write this, all of our bodies, you and me and everyone, has any number of 200+ industrial chemicals, according to the CDC, some of which are carcinogenic. And, some of those carcinogens, like PCBs, are the result of computer and electronic industry. Despite the fact that some of these chemicals have been banned, they’re there in our blood. They’r there, because they don’t biodegrade. In other words, they don’t act as natural products, which, of course, have long history.
And, I haven’t even said anything about those inventions whose emissions have caused and are causing global warming, at least according to way over the majority of the world’s climatologists.
Now, “science” wants to correct global warming with geoengineering projects, such as seeding clouds with certain chemicals to do whatever. This is like giving our bodies a pharmaceutical hoping it will get better. And, perhaps most us do get better after taking a drug, but the side-effects, which every drug has? Every drug we take has side-effects, and some are worst than the disease it’s suppose to be curing. What are the side effects of enormous geoengineering projects? No one knows and it may be impossible to know considering how complicated, much as our bodies, ecosystems are.
I don’t think people realize how serious “our” global environmental problems are. The major source of our oxygen is disappearing – chlorophyll that which converts CO2 to O2 found in forests and the phytoplankton in the oceans is disappearing. Deforestation has been occurring for several hundred years, beginning with the clearing of vast forests of Europe that once covered land all of Europe. The eastern USA was once all forest, from Florida to Canada. And, recently Nature magazine reported that since 1950s, 40% of the phytoplankton in the oceans has disappeared. It began to disappear at about 1% or so per year since 1900, at about the time mass production of the products of industrial revolution was just getting started. No knows exactly why phytoplankton is disappearing, but it isn’t because the oceans are as pristine as they once were, that’s for sure.
In many cases we are shortsighted, and our technology is still primitive in that it does not harmonize with our environment, but some awkwardness is a natural part of the process of evolution of ideas.
We’ve never had this many people to feed at one time on the planet. I don’t think organic farming has the ability to scale up to feed this many people. Remember how many people are starving every day? Why is organic more expensive? Pesticides make more food by giving less to pests. More cancer for us long term, but more people don’t die of starvation.
Am I wrong?
About farming – don’t get caught up in some hype: “Remember how many people are starving every day” Where, when and why?
A lot of “scientists” may disagree with you. But, your ideas will find no argument among economists at the World Bank (as well as Bill Gates et al.,) who are banking on Big Agro (polluting) ventures in Africa.
Xeno, it is the very notion of “primitive,” as opposed to “modern,” or “new” – a great attractive word advertising agencies know all too (a notion that, in fact, also dates to the 19th century) – is the very destruction of our planet.
We have had it backwards for a long, too long time! Read what I wrote.
The planet, Xeno, is literally dying. We are living now in our own waste. And, it’s pulling up higher and higher all the time.
But, as George Carlin says (in the very important vid you recently posted) “no one seems to notice, no one seems to care …” We go on dreaming about our sci fi world (like a lot Americans once had the “American Dream”) about tomorrow, when there is no tomorrow, literally.
When people don’t care, it seems to be because they are not convinced that things must change, or they don’t even see change as possible. There are differences in views regarding acceptable risks. There are different levels of learned helplessness. Imagine if our world, our species, had a 1000 year plan. What would that look like, if we all cooperated to build a new reality?
You know, Xeno, I have much respect for scientific endeavors, truly. But, it seems we must continue to endure the same old stuff, again and again.
Environmental problems we face today are the same problems talked about in the 1960s, 50 years ago! Really! The only difference is that they have gotten worse (Oh some chemicals have been banned, and some rivers have been cleaned, but the problems of chemicals and pollution persist.) But, “no one seems to notice, no one seems to care.”
I think a big part of the problem is that scientists and people in general can’t, or better, don’t want to think “outside the box,” or, if you will, outside their narrow interests. You know, the internet is wonderful, because through it we have access to ungodly amounts of information, knowledge on just about anything. But, I read recently that people usually focus on what they “like.” And, seldom stray beyond their (narrow) range of range of interests.
The trends in science in the last 20 years or so have presumably been toward interdisciplinary studies, combining entirely different fields to find solutions and answers. In medicine there is supposed to be a similar trend toward “holistic” studies, which is like, say, combining social studies and physiology. But, sadly, these trends are more advocated than actually practiced.
Alyssa McDonald recently asked Noam Chomsky, “Are we all doomed?”
And his reply was, “If there was an observer on Mars, they would probably be amazed that we have survived this long. There are two problems for our species’ survival – nuclear war and environmental catastrophe – and we’re hurtling towards them. Knowingly. This hypothetical Martian would probably conclude that human beings were an evolutionary error.” (New Statesman, 13 September 2010)
Ha!