A lot of people, both inside and outside the scientific community, got riled up back in September by the results of a recent study on neutrino particles purporting to show them moving just a bit faster than light speed. Of course, that would violate a key tenant of Einstein’s relativity physics, i.e. the ban against anything with mass achieving light speed, and against anything with or without mass going faster (and able to covey any sort of real information — as neutrinos could). A lot of intelligent non-science folk got interested, hoping that something with deep mystical or philosophical implications was in the works here.<\/p>\n
However, from what I’ve seen from a variety of sources, the science folk have the situation under control. There’s plenty of past evidence showing that neutrinos can’t and don’t violate light speed, and also plenty of reasons why the study in question was deceiving. It will take some months to straighten it out, but the boffins seem confident that the whole thing will blow over soon. Sorry, nothing to see here, metaphysically speaking.<\/p>\n
But something else is going on in the world of sub-atomic particles and forces that could be just as troubling, even though it hasn’t gained much attention from the public. The reason for that is because it involves the “fine structure constant”<\/a> of atoms. I don’t understand exactly what this constant is, but I gather that it is important because it predicts how particles within atoms will interact with each other and with particles from without that cause light and magnetism (photons). It basically spells out what atoms will do in various situations according to quantum physics (quantum electrodynamics). <\/p>\n Why should anyone but the most pedantic physicist care about that? Because, if atoms acted differently, if the fine structure constant of their components changed too much, then the world as we know it, with solid stuff, could not exist. You couldn’t have suns and planets and houses and rivers and . . . whatnot. Reality would be more of an energy fuzzball or fog. Even if this constant changed by just a few percentage points<\/a>, stars could no longer manufacture the key elements needed for life, e.g. carbon and oxygen. Thus living, sentient beings as we know them might not be able to exist or be sustained in such a universe. <\/p>\n As Dr. Ethan Siegel explains in his popular physics blog “Starts With A Bang”<\/a>, there have been some good studies in recent years showing that the fine structure constant has changed over billions of years. Another study hints that fine structure may be different in different parts of the universe, independent of time. Although the public hasn’t been too concerned about all this, it freaks a lot of physicists out. As with the neutrino situation, researchers and theorists are working hard to unravel this one. Unlike the neutrino study, however, this situation is supported by several studies, that no one has yet been able to pick apart.<\/p>\n (Interestingly, one of the factors that goes into calculating the fine structure constant is the speed of light; if light speed as we know it were found not to hold for neutrinos, then the fine structure situation might be even worse.)<\/p>\n If any of the fine structure variations were to hold up, it could mean a number of things. DEFINITELY NOT that life on earth as we know it is doomed. Nor that God or some other metaphysical force rules (although, as with all of this astrophysical jive, it does NOT rule out that possibility, Stephen Hawking notwithstanding). But perhaps it will show that reality has more dimensions to it than are now obvious, more places for interaction factors to hide than we are currently aware of. Perhaps light speed, for one, is different in other places and times. Perhaps the system of particles and forces as we know them can vary. <\/p>\n But not<\/em> here in our little world. We are talking about billions of light years and eons of time. Still, it might be good to keep an eye on the fine structure constant situation in modern physics. That could be where some big changes for today’s physics textbooks could originate.<\/p>\n Oh P.S., while we’re talking about space stuff — here’s another interesting “almost” situation (thankfully, one that did NOT happen). Back in 1883, an astronomer in Mexico might have seen the remains of a comet that got pretty close to hitting the earth. If for just a few hundred miles course variance, human life actually might have been snuffed out, if that astronomers reports were correct. Article here<\/a>. However, there are skeptics<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A lot of people, both inside and outside the scientific community, got riled up back in September by the results of a recent study on neutrino particles purporting to show them moving just a bit faster than light speed. 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