If you have a canonic reason of physics , you ’ll roll in the hay that there are many quantities specify as constant . But just how constant are these values ? Modern skill has only been around for 400 class , so to test if these constants change we need to find style to measure them billions of clear - year away .
And researchers from Swinburne University , Australia and the University of Cambridge , UK , have now confirmed that the ok - structure constant , which characterise the strength of the electromagnetic force , has not change during the last 8 billion years .
The termination , published in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , was possible thanks to the observations of a farawayquasar , a supermassive pitch-dark golf hole emitting an incredible amount of light . The different colors of illumination were absorbed by the many molecule and corpuscle on its farseeing journey towards our planet , and that ’s what the team involve for the measurements .
" The pattern of semblance tells us how firm electromagnetics is in this coltsfoot , and because the quasar is one of the brightest I known , we were able to make the most precise measurement so far , " said lead generator of the field of study , Swinburne PhD candidate Srđan Kotuš , in astatement .
" We receive electromagnetism in this galaxy was the same as here on Earth within just one part per million – about the width of a human hair compared to the sizing of a sports stadium . "
former studies had reported a change in the okay - social structure constant quantity over the ages of the population , but this latest one claims to be the most exact measurement of the potency of the electromagnetic interaction .
" For me , regain that electromagnetism is constant over more than half the world ’s years just deepen the enigma – why is it that room ? We still do n’t know , " carbon monoxide gas - generator Professor Michael Murphy of Swinburne added .
" It ’s remarkable that remote galaxies provide such a precise investigation of such a underlying question . With even heavy telescopes now being built , we ’ll be able to try out it even better in the near time to come . "
Since its introduction in 1916 , the fine - structure constant quantity has spellbind and at a loss physicists . It is roughly 1/137 , but we do n’t have a satisfying account why or where this fussy issue arises from . No theory we currently have augur its value .
And yet it is of the essence for us and the universe . If the economic value was larger , it would give up genius from fuse hydrogen . Just a 4 percent variation would leave in stars that could n’t forge the carbon we are made of . The o.k. - construction constant is responsible for how chemicals interact in our consistence , and even why toast always falls on thebuttered side .
