Fundamental Physics Laws Change Depending on When and Where You Are, New Study Says

Holy. Shit.

You know in high school our physics experiments sometimes led us to find constants being off by factors of 100. Based on the fact other experiments find he's wrong, I think there's some error or environmental factor not being accounted for. It's one study.

Variables won't. Constants aren't.

Other than that, SJack said it best. I don't know if it's true or not, and I honestly don't know enough physics to critique it, but holy SHIT if this is real.

Well I have been trying to tell everyone around me for a while but no one seems to listen.

The universe is full of check and balances that seem to, allow (and disallow) life to exist. We are finding more and more more evidence of microbial life being commonplace.

It only seems righteous in this entire picture that, everywhere life CAN exist, it WILL. Putting all my chips on this one.

@ sanextaski:
Do you know why your high school physics experiments where off by factors of 100? Cuz your effin high school students man... with crappy physics experiments. What is the error or environmental factor or discrepancy that is not being accounted for? These people are EXPERTS in their field of studies, you don't think they have already taken that into account? These people have THE best equipment available to them. I'm going to graduate school for applied physics and astrophysics and this is the VERY same subject I have been researching... give it a year and THIS will be confirmed I can guarantee it! bmcgaffey10 has it right... I'm putting all my eggs into this basket!

@ sanextaski:
Do you know why your high school physics experiments where off by factors of 100? Cuz your effin high school students man... with crappy physics experiments. What is the error or environmental factor or discrepancy that is not being accounted for? These people are EXPERTS in their field of studies, you don't think they have already taken that into account? These people have THE best equipment available to them. I'm going to graduate school for applied physics and astrophysics and this is the VERY same subject I have been researching... give it a year and THIS will be confirmed I can guarantee it! bmcgaffey10 has it right... I'm putting all my eggs into this basket!

@ sanextaski:
Do you know why your high school physics experiments where off by factors of 100? Cuz your effin high school students man... with crappy physics experiments. What is the error or environmental factor or discrepancy that is not being accounted for? These people are EXPERTS in their field of studies, you don't think they have already taken that into account? These people have THE best equipment available to them. I'm going to graduate school for applied physics and astrophysics and this is the VERY same subject I have been researching... give it a year and THIS will be confirmed I can guarantee it! bmcgaffey10 has it right... I'm putting all my eggs into this basket!

@bmcgaffey10-I think you are missing a subtle point here.

If the laws of physics vary in time then window for intellegent life to have time to develop just got smaller as the laws of physics would not allow it as early as previously thought.

If the laws of physics vary in space then the amount of habital space just became smaller too and so the probablity of intellegent life elsewhere is less likely not more likely.

This seems to me, a layman, that this theory is very close to bubble theory in that the laws of matter vary and are not constant. This serves as an alternative to the standard model and the inventions of dark matter and dark energy.

This is about the third article this year that has a similar theme. If the LHC explores all enery locations for the higgs boson and still cant find the particle then that would lead credence to this line of thought further.

@edisonkenevil - i don't think this really changes much. the basic idea here is that in other regions of space, matter just doesn't happen. in all we see from here, we see matter. we easily see stars, galaxies and exoplanets. sure, there are areas where this alpha is so different, but the area where matter works is HUGE.

Why are people saying that this reduces the chances of life existing? If anything it opens more opportunities up for all types of life forms.

Couldn't this be used to find the center of the universe, or at least the general direction of it?

Find the largest value and the smallest value, that should be your "North/South" heading right? although it's 3d so that makes it a tad harder.

I'd almost be willing to bet we should focus our search for inteligent life toward the center where alpha once was in the Goldilocks zone. If I'm understanding this correctly, far enough out life, or matter for that umm matter, can't be supported. So really, looking nearby and inward is where we should look.

@gillje03
You don't have to be insulting as you can't prove that this experiment is right. Just because you go into this field of research doesn't mean YOUR believed theories will always be right. Lose some cockiness.

Even if the scientist have "THE BEST EQUIPMENTS" it doesn't mean that their equipment is accurate enough to prive one theory on just ONE experiment. Just because the Hubble space telescope WAS the best telescope, it doesn't mean it will continue to be in the future. It's people like you who thinks they're always right and end up making a stupid mistake because they're too proud to see their error who pisses me off.

On topic: Let's says alpha was a bit bigger, and maybe a bit smaller in both direction. It's still good enough to sustain a physical at least 13Bill light years radius universe.

Colour me extremely dubious. While I'm sure this group has done good science, good science has come up with bizarre and wholly wrong conclusions before. This is the kind of "mind-blowing discovery" and smacks of something like Garret Lisi's E8 Theory. It has a lot of gloss and sounds earthshattering, and whether or not this particular discovery will hold up under close examination remains to be seen.

Now if this is true? Well hell, that's pretty incredible and sort of puts the anthropic principle in a strange light.

I thought it was common knowledge by now that physics are not uniform and that you are subject to dominant physics wherever you happen to be.

And this is paraphrased from a Superman comic that explains why he was a normal man in his red sun system, but coming to Earth with a yellow sun and less gravity made his normal abilities seem super.

It's only logical that by going to a different place with different circumstances, different conditions and different physical makeups that the governing physics will be different...

Nice!

Mind = Blown.

$o$aLoc$ To expect in space is the unexpected,both theories are right in every aspect for we have only scatch the suface of space.

That is why we developed the idea of neutrinos (or dark matter, or either), to make up that little difference in energy that didn't quite fit the equations.

Well well well. I never did like the idea of dark matter/energy... this could fix all that nonsense. It raises another interesting idea for me: If alpha changes across space, and the direction of the gradient corresponds with the starting expansion point of the big bang (perhaps becoming more/less the further you are from the expansion point), then perhaps there is a universal "goldilocks zone" sort of like the habitable zone around stars... perhaps there is a giant ring (or sphere, depending on whether you visualize in two or three dimensions) a certain distance from the big bang, prior to which, and beyond which, life as we know it cannot exist.

It doesnt really bother me if this is the case... it would still leave PLENTY of real estate for us to explore. It just means that perhaps there are places in the universe to which lifeforms like us simply CANNOT go.

If its NOT a gradient from some specific point (like the big bang), then that would leave the possibility of regions or "bubbles" within our universe, perhaps distributed unpredictably, where the laws of physics become hostile to our existence... which would make the universe a VERY dangerous place to explore. I dont like that idea, so I am going with the gradient, lol.

either way, very interesting to me. :)

This is a really fantastic idea if it is true! There are a couple of points that immediately come to mind:

1. Measuring the size of the universe: If we can determine how alpha changes over distance (is it linear, parabolic, or some other predictable curve), we can estimate the volume of space where matter as we know can to exist. The boundaries of our matter universe would be where alpha transitions into a matter-is-impossible value. (and who knows what you would see if you were standing near that boundary!).

2. Explanation for the big bang: We can postulate some larger multi-dimensional universe with all sorts of energy fields in it, and alpha would be part of one of those fields. If this field had waves or ripples in it, there would be regions where alpha suddenly became matter-permitting. In those regions, massive amounts of energy fro the background fields might suddenly be converted into the matter and energy we are familiar with. To a human inside that space, who could not perceive the extra-dimensional energy fields, it would seem that a colossal amount of energy burst forth from nothingness.

so... the universe could fly apart at any moment, but it seems to be held together by something...*cough* God *cough*

So, the universe changes the laws of physics depending on location eh? That explains what dark matter could be. This theory states that matter cannot exist in certain locations in the universe. Maybe because the law of gravity (or some other law) pushes matter away and that might explain what's pushing the universe apart. I do believe there is a "goldilocks zone" that expands in size that is relative to the universe but also that from the center of the universe's expansion, new alpha emerges or whatever. This could also explain black holes. dark matter, "regular" matter, antimatter(or some other matter), collapses differently in different parts of the universe a quasar could be another universe/dark matter galaxy inside a different area of the alpha where the laws change. This is pretty crazy.

Anyways, if John Web and their team are correct, then the universe is full of infinite possibilities.

Interesting....so if this proves too be true, imminent death and atomic deconstruction too all ye who enter here? Or there? Should be pleasant.

Why are people so surprised?

Because you touch yourself at night. That's why people are so surprised.

"competing studies did not find the same result"
If the results haven't be duplicated, the research is dubious at best.

"so... the universe could fly apart at any moment, but it seems to be held together by something..."

No.

"*cough* God *cough*"

Bad cough you got there.

Sounds like a perfectly normal cough to me

@loafula-sure we can see stars, galaxies, and exoplanets but there is no assureance that alpha is the same for these locations. The laws of physics may not be the same and photons may still manage to be passed through and released from them to give us images but there could be perfectly visible areas of the universe that are totaly hostile to life.

Maybe I'm wrong here but the thought of finding the 'center' of the universe as the location for the big bang is really a kind of misnomer. Before the big-bang it was not just some vacum out there. Literally time and space did not exist. As the big bang expanded it created time/space as we know it hence there was no place for the big bang singulaity to be center in as there was no time space.

Now you could theoreticaly find the center of mass of or center of volume of the universe but that would not be the same thing. Sorry Dracolique but I think we are living in a bubble.

Well, it comes with a perk. It means that every point in the universe was also the center of the big bang. That means you've already found it. = )

I have a question that I hope doesn't sound too dumb, but I notice under the photo at the top of the page, "Gravity causes the primordial matter to arrange itself in thin filaments."

My question is, does this have anything to do with 'string theory'?

can you say Sensationalism? the laws of physics do not change in time or space, BY DEFINITION. if Alpha varies, well, ok, it isnt a constant. no big deal. you would think PopSci would get writers who have some scientific training or at least knowledge of basic science concepts.

lol marcopolo1613 that was my first thought after reading this. If this theory was true I would be a true christian. This would explain the galaxies that defy our laws of gravity. Like that one with two suns orbiting around each other that have planets orbiting them perfectly fine. I like this theory, this will open up a lot more studies that scientist didn't want to get there hands into.

Just as I was reading the article I was thinking "This sounds like the next Christian argument" and as I scrolled down into comments I was not disappointed. I'm a Christian myself but if atheist/agnostics have ignored previous evidence what makes you think the're gonna believe this one, and I think it's too early to call anything on any side anyway.

This is like debating about a picture on the screen with a stubborn blind man...

@dracolique The universe doesn't have an expansion point, it is expanding at all points. Dark matter and energy are quantifiable and verifiable "nonsense," that you want to replace with something unverifiable but not nonsense?

@gillje03 You are going to graduate school for applied physics and you are putting all your eggs into this one unconfirmed basket? Good luck! Guess you didn't learn anything about the scientific method before college?

@edisonkenevil Alpha constant is NOT an alternative to the effects of dark energy! They manifest entirely different effects!

@johnt007871 The universe doesn't have a center or a preferred frame of reference, as Einstein proved.

@Baseball Christianity has nothing to do with physics no matter what some preach. Religion is a guide to living, nothing else.

Variation in the fine structure constant was actually predicted by the science fiction author Stephen Hunt years ago in one of his novels. See www.stephenhunt.net/?p=207 for details.

@scramjetter
I agree that christianity is a guide to living and that religion has nothing to do with how physics works, but a higher power could be a reason why physics works.

I was just marveling about this theory how rare it is that we are in the Goldilocks zone

This is a very interesting article! I got to learn about a whole bunch of different theories while attending an Accredited Online High School! But nothing like this... Wow!

Spatial variation of the fine-structure constant?

J. K. Webb et al., arXiv: 1008.3907v1 presented possible evidence of a spatial variation of the fine-structure constant, where the axis of the dipole points to R. A. = 17.3h, dec. = -61°.

Such a spatial variation, if confirmed, might indicate an anisotropic universe. I would like to point out two earlier works which reported possible evidence of an anisotropic universe.

P. Birch, Nature 298 (1982) 451-454 presented possible evidence of a vorticity of the universe, where the axis of the dipole points to R. A. = 14h 55min, dec. = -35°.

Only a small part of the 3K dipole can be explained by the motion of the Sun around the Galactic centre and the gravitational infall of the Milky Way into the Virgo cluster of galaxies. A. Dressler, Nature 350 (1991) 391-397 suggested a motion of the Local Supercluster towards Galactic longitude l = 307° and Galactic latitude b = 9° (approximately R. A. = 13.5h, dec. = -45°). His claimed Great Attractor has never been detected. So it is possible that this so far unexplained part of the 3K dipole results not from Local Supercluster motion, but from an anisotropic universe.

The three directions listed above differ from one another. However, the error bars are large. Possibly the works of Birch, Dressler, and Webb et al. support an anisotropic universe.

Anyone who is interested in my early work on an anisotropic universe is invited to read my paper R. W. Kühne, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 12 (1997) 2473-2474 = arXiv: astro-ph/9708109. In it I argued that the alignment of the rotation axes of the galaxies of the Perseus-Pisces supercluster results from universal vorticity (Gödel cosmology).

Anyone who is interested in my early work on a time-variation of the fine-structure constant is invited to read my paper R. W. Kühne, Mod. Phys. Lett. A 14 (1999) 1917-1922 = arXiv: astro-ph/9908356.

I am amazed at the "Physicis" major....you would think that by this point in his education he would have figured out that as conditions change, the rules governing those systems change also. When H2o is in liquid form, its composition adheres to a specific set of properities. When it's frozen into a solid, some of the laws pertaining to its material dynamics are likewise altered.

This is why (in my opinion) there will NEVER be a "Unified Field Theory", because as the game changes, the rules of the game change right along with it.

The very fact that the "Alpha constant" changes over time and space makes perfect sense and is exciting beyond description. This may allow us to exploit the phenomenon and overcome some of the limitations placed on our physicis such as speed of light travel, teleportation and time displacement. Thank you for the opportunity to express my opinion.

-

The Sixth Sense - New GROUNDBREAKING Book in 2012! The Sixth Sense leads to Enlightenment
DNA Healing Code - Hardwired in ALL Humans

As an example of what I mean by “Groundbreaking” info that can be found in the 2012 release of my new book on The Sixth Sense (not yet titled )…..
There is a sequence required to communicate with Infinite Intelligence – to gain insight and/or much more complicated yet achievable, HolisticDNA Energy Healing. The sequence required is on multiple simultaneous levels, not just “step by step” like an instruction manual for assembling a piece of furniture.
The “Key” sequence has to do with applying known facts, beliefs, emotions and faith (not religious) – if not applied exactly as detailed, the Sixth Sense will remain dormant, and not be “activated”. As an example:

fact --
fact --
fact --
belief --
fact --
in theory --
belief --
fact --
belief --
Faith --
fact --
fact --
fact --
Faith

you won’t find this in any existing text, which is why The Sixth Sense is so rarely utilized and hard to confirm. This will allow the Scientific Community to experiment and confirm my claims — remember, just a few decades ago, it was impossible to have a Man walk on the moon. Time for the next impossible to be challenged and confirmed — real

Steve Meyer HolisticDNA