I remember we did a thread about this about a year so ago (can't find it though). This is the follow-up research.
Nature's laws may vary across the Universe
The gist is these guys from UNSW/Swinburne/Cambridge have now doubled the number of observations and measured the value of 'alpha' (the fine structure constant) in about 300 distant galaxies over a much wider area of sky. Their finding reinforces what they came up with earlier on …
Quote:
"The results astonished us," said Professor Webb. "In one direction - from our location in the Universe - alpha gets gradually weaker, yet in the opposite direction it gets gradually stronger."
"The discovery, if confirmed, has profound implications for our understanding of space and time and violates one of the fundamental principles underlying Einstein's General Relativity theory," Dr King added.
"Such violations are actually expected in some more modern ‘Theories of Everything' that try to unify all the known fundamental forces," said Professor Flambaum. "The smooth continuous change in alpha may also imply the Universe is much larger than our observable part of it, possibly infinite."
"Another currently popular idea is that many universes exist, each having its own set of physical laws," Dr Murphy said. "Even a slight change in the laws of Nature means they weren't ‘set in stone' when our Universe was born. The laws of Nature you see may depend on your ‘space-time address' - when and where you happen to live in the Universe."
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This is serious stuff if it turns out to be so.
At the very least, it shows something is afoot, which may not be able to be simply explained.
They must be pretty confident of their findings as this article says they have now published in the 'Physical Review Letters'.
Cheers