Ye cannae change the laws of physics

[mldee (Mike)]

My apologies if this has already been posted.

From today's Economist site:http://www.economist.com/node/16930866

Re a variable fine-structure constant and the background to the research.

[renormalised (Carl)]

Yes, a very interesting piece of work, but it needs a lot more work done on it before I'll be happy to take their conclusions at face value. I think they need to explore every possible permutation of instrument error, procedural differences in making calculations, the size of their surveys, what they're actually surveying etc etc, before they can come out and say with any certainty that the fine structure constant is variable after all. They have some interesting findings, but they're far from conclusive.

[CraigS]

Hmm ..

Very interesting. Measurements based on quasar redshifts, eh ?

I wonder why they didn't use stellar redshifts ? (Perhaps they did .. haven't read their paper, yet).

Thanks for the heads-up Mike. Another one for the 'ponder this' bucket !

Cheers

[OzRob (Rob)]

Originally Posted by CraigS

Hmm ..

Very interesting. Measurements based on quasar redshifts, eh ?

I wonder why they didn't use stellar redshifts ? (Perhaps they did .. haven't read their paper, yet).

Thanks for the heads-up Mike. Another one for the 'ponder this' bucket !

Cheers

I think they used quasars as they as very bright objects.

Interesting article.