Universal Constants (Umbran, Pbartender)

[Pbartender]

The masses of particles are thought to be determined by their interactions with a ubiquitous field of Higgs bosons, which have not yet been detected. Physicists have high hopes that the Large Hadron Collider at CERN will confirm this theory when it's completed.

Incidentally, all of us working here at Fermilab have (not quite as) high hopes that the Tevatron, D0 and CDF will collectively confirm that theory before LHC does... Though I can't say that any of us expect it.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

I read or heard or dreamed something recently about how different the universe would be if the constants we know and cherish had been a little different, i.e. the speed of light faster or slower by a few thousand MPS, or the strong and weak nuclear forces slightly stronger or weaker. Basically, the universe we ended up with is a direct result of those constants being exactly what they are, and it's reasonable to suspect that life might not even be possible were anything even a little "off".

So in a sense, we're only able to sit here and ponder your question BECAUSE the speed of light is 186K MPS.

And I'll take the blue pill please. I'm having a nice pizza dinner tonight and I don't want to miss it.

 

[Aaron L]

Im certain that some kind of chemical reaction that could be called life would be possible in just about any scenario. I have always tried to find information about the possibilities about non carbon based life forms, and I finally found something on wikipedia about it. Carbon chauvanism always irks me, why does all life have to be carbon based for us to even think of it? I could easily envision some life form based on some weird chemical seeing us and thinking "that isnt alive, its a chemical reaction", much the same way we view fire. And the glut of humanoid carbon based aliens in fiction always gives me loopies.


Just a pet peeve and interest of mine.

 

[tarchon]

Yes, while MM puts in in a voice that makes it seem funny, he has a point. Your answer is a dodge - it doesn't tell you why they can't go faster (or, in fact, slower).

It's very consistent with Einsteinian relativity. That is why light travels in free space at C in SR/GR - light travels at the fastest possible speed, and the fastest possible speed is C. Why the scaling factor between time and space dimensions in the invariant quadratic form is particularly C is unknown, but the chain of scientific explanation does go deeper than "C is the speed of light in free space." Loosely, one could regard C as the "speed of time" and thus any causal phenomena must necessarily be limited to that speed.

 

[Steve Jung]

Im certain that some kind of chemical reaction that could be called life would be possible in just about any scenario. I have always tried to find information about the possibilities about non carbon based life forms, and I finally found something on wikipedia about it. Carbon chauvanism always irks me, why does all life have to be carbon based for us to even think of it? I could easily envision some life form based on some weird chemical seeing us and thinking "that isnt alive, its a chemical reaction", much the same way we view fire. And the glut of humanoid carbon based aliens in fiction always gives me loopies.


Just a pet peeve and interest of mine.

A quick answer is this.

 

[Tarrasque Wrangler]

Im certain that some kind of chemical reaction that could be called life would be possible in just about any scenario. I have always tried to find information about the possibilities about non carbon based life forms, and I finally found something on wikipedia about it. Carbon chauvanism always irks me, why does all life have to be carbon based for us to even think of it? I could easily envision some life form based on some weird chemical seeing us and thinking "that isnt alive, its a chemical reaction", much the same way we view fire. And the glut of humanoid carbon based aliens in fiction always gives me loopies.


Just a pet peeve and interest of mine.

I wasn't talking about chemical reactions, although that could certainly have been a casualty of a world with different constants. I was talking Big Picture stuff: stars never coalescing in the first place, or burning out in seconds because the strong nuclear force is too high. I suppose some kind of life could come about in a cold lightless void, but that ain't what I call livin' .

 

[tarchon]

I have always tried to find information about the possibilities about non carbon based life forms, and I finally found something on wikipedia about it. Carbon chauvanism always irks me, why does all life have to be carbon based for us to even think of it?

I've always figured sulfur or siloxane chains might go somewhere under the right conditions.

 

[Zweihänder]

The answer is 42. Everyone should know that by now.

Sir, you have blown my mind.

 

[Umbran]

IWhy the scaling factor between time and space dimensions in the invariant quadratic form is particularly C is unknown, but the chain of scientific explanation does go deeper than "C is the speed of light in free space."

Ultimately if you say, "The speed of light is C" and "The scaling factor between time and space dimensions is C", you say the same thing in different words. All that's happening above is a linguistic coordinate transformation - it gives you no further information, so it isn't really any deeper. And, as you say, it doesn't get you any closer to why c has the value it does. That's still a mystery.

Im certain that some kind of chemical reaction that could be called life would be possible in just about any scenario.

It isn't certain at all. In fact, with most of the basic constants, if they vary even a small amount from what they are in our Universe, chemicals as we know them cease to exist - if the nuclear couplings vary, stable atomic nuclei don't form. If the electromagnetic coupling is just a bit stronger, electrons go tumbling into the nuclei, a bit weaker, and the electrons go flying off on their own.

This is something often referred to as the "(weak) Anthropic Principle". In effect - of course we see the Universe with the constants it has - if it had other constants, we would not be able to exist to see the Universe. The argument is then that there is no special reason behind the constants being what they are - they may not be chosen by any mechanism. We see this particular combination because it's the only combination compatible with our existance.

 

[tarchon]

Ultimately if you say, "The speed of light is C" and "The scaling factor between time and space dimensions is C", you say the same thing in different words. All that's happening above is a linguistic coordinate transformation - it gives you no further information, so it isn't really any deeper. And, as you say, it doesn't get you any closer to why c has the value it does. That's still a mystery.

So you're saying that in, say, 1870 if someone had asked Maxwell what the coefficient for the time coordinate in the invariant quadratic form was, he would have said "of course, that's the same thing as the speed of light!" Obviously not. There's a little more to knowing that those two constants are the same thing than just a "linguistic coordinate transformation."