Cosmology; fine tuning factor confirmed (Introduction)

by David Turell , Monday, February 24, 2020, 19:08 (1522 days ago) @ David Turell

The fine structure constant is confirmed as unchanged by a black hole:

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/fine-structure-constant-remains-same-even-near-blac...

"According to standard physics, the fine-structure constant, which governs interactions of electrically charged particles, is the same everywhere in the universe. Some alternative theories, however, suggest that the constant might be different in certain locales, such as the extreme gravitational environment around a black hole. But when put to the test near the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way, the number didn’t budge, physicists report in a paper accepted in Physical Review Letters.

"The fine-structure constant is one of an assortment of unchanging numbers found in physics formulas, such as the mass of an electron or the speed of light. It determines the strength with which electrically charged particles pull on one another. Scientists don’t know why it has the value it does — about 1/137. But its size seems crucial: If that number were much different, atoms wouldn’t form.

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"It’s the first time scientists have searched for a variation of the fine-structure constant in the general vicinity of a black hole, says Wim Ubachs of Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, a physicist who previously has searched for changes in various constants of nature.

"A 2010 study gave tentative hints that the fine-structure constant might vary as scientists look farther out into space, with the number increasing or decreasing in certain directions, but the evidence for that phenomenon is not conclusive (SN: 9/3/10). So scientists are probing the constant in a variety of ways, including near a black hole.

“'The work is very important because it denotes the beginning of a new type of study,” namely, searching for variation of the fine-structure constant at the center of the galaxy, says physicist John Webb of the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

"In previous research, Webb and colleagues found no variation while probing the fine-structure constant in an environment that’s even more gravitationally extreme: the surface of dense dead stars called white dwarfs. So if the new research had found any indication of change in the steadfast constant, Webb says, “I would have been very surprised.'”

Comment: All the fine tuning values are well-known, but surprisingly the reasons for each exact number is not understood. God works are still mysterious in many ways.