On Fri, Oct 30, 2015 at 8:36 AM, Bob Cook <frobertc...@hotmail.com> wrote:
This item suggests that the fine constant varies with time. It may be that > relativistic conditions and time contraction cause small changes in the > constant effective for any coherent system. > If the fine structure constant is eventually found to vary in time, perhaps the first order in the variation goes back to a single component. Here are different versions of the fine structure constant: [image: Inline image 1] Here is a breakdown of the components from Wikipedia (translated to ascii for those with old email clients): e is the elementary charge; h_bar = h/2π is the reduced Planck constant; c is the speed of light in vacuum; e0 is the electric constant or permittivity of free space; u0 is the magnetic constant or permeability of free space; ke is the Coulomb constant; RK is the von Klitzing constant. I've long wondered whether the speed of light might not be constant. I see that what the study reported were limits on the possible variation, although the abstract said that their limits were consistent with a variation. Eric
