Laws of physics may change across the universe

[lazarus]

Weird one this, perhaps it should be in the Physics section?

A controversial finding comes from an observation that one of the constants of nature appears to be different in different parts of the cosmos, and may be evidence that supports the idea that we live in an area of the universe that is "just right" for our existence.

www.newscientist.com/article/dn19429-laws-of-physics-may-change-across-the-universe.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

Just when we thought we could be on the verge of some unifying theory along comes this spanner.

Weird, just weird.

[Progenitor A]

Sept 9, 2010 0:55:40 GMT 1 lazarus said:

Just when we thought we could be on the verge of some unifying theory along comes this spanner.

I wonder who 'we' is?

But this is interesting and it will be more interesting (or dead in th ewater) as time goes on

[marchesarosa]

Maybe it's "Natural Variation".

[abacus9900]

We are usually told that the laws of physics are universally constant but I wonder if that can be true in view of the existence of 'dark matter', which is not composed of ordinary matter.

[lazarus]

Sept 9, 2010 7:09:04 GMT 1 Progenitor A said:

I wonder who 'we' is?

The people working on a unified field theory.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory

[Progenitor A]

Sept 9, 2010 10:33:58 GMT 1 lazarus said:

Sept 9, 2010 7:09:04 GMT 1 Progenitor A said:

I wonder who 'we' is?

The people working on a unified field theory.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_field_theory

I see. Are you working in that field?

[speakertoanimals]

There is a difference between saying the laws of physics are the same everywhere and everywhen (kind of what they are by definition, and saying that various supposed constants might instead vary across space or time. The latter is actually rather old hat.

The fact that we can understand what we see from distant galaxies far in the past at all, means that things were roughly the same (else we wouldn't see the exact same patterns of spectral lines as we see here on earth), but there is stil room for measurements as to whether things like the fine structure constant of the speed of light are truly constant, or just approximately so.

Not so much a spanner, it is NEW physics that we are looking for after all, in order to try and figure out how to make it all fit -- just that people would prefer the new to be something they were kind of expecting, as well as something with a much greater statistical significance.