Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Science
Related: About this forumStudy claims all observables in nature can be measured with a single constant: The second
From phys.org
The figure illustrates three events in Minkowski spacetime. Event 𝐵 is neither in the past nor in the future of 𝐴, 𝐴 ~ 𝐵, and event 𝐶 is neither in the past nor in the future of 𝐵, 𝐵 ~ 𝐶. Despite this, 𝐶 ∻ 𝐴. Indeed, 𝐶 is in the future of 𝐴: 𝐶 ≻ 𝐴. Credit: Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-71907-0
__________________________________________________________________________
A group of Brazilian researchers has presented an innovative proposal to resolve a decades-old debate among theoretical physicists: How many fundamental constants are needed to describe the observable universe? Here, the term "fundamental constants" refers to the basic standards needed to measure everything.
The study is published - (open source - Jim) in the journal Scientific Reports.
The group argues that the number of fundamental constants depends on the type of space-time in which the theories are formulated; and that in a relativistic space-time, this number can be reduced to a single constant, which is used to define the standard of time. The study is an original contribution to the controversy sparked in 2002 by a famous article by Michael Duff, Lev Okun and Gabriele Veneziano published - (open source - Jim) in the Journal of High Energy Physics.
The whole story had begun ten years earlier, in the summer of 1992, when the three scientists met on the terrace of the cafeteria at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. During an informal conversation, they discovered that they disagreed on the number of fundamental constants.
more ...
5 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Study claims all observables in nature can be measured with a single constant: The second (Original Post)
Jim__
Dec 17
OP
erronis
(17,181 posts)1. Cool - let me sleep on this and I'll get back to you in the morning.
Won't understand it any better but it'll give that old night-time brain something to chew on.
NoRethugFriends
(3,072 posts)2. My thoughts exactly
WestMichRad
(1,891 posts)3. If it's the one fundamental constant, shouldn't it be called...
the first?
(Ill let myself out now.)
BadgerKid
(4,700 posts)4. The Planck time should work, too.
It depends on the speed of light, c, and the gravitational constant, G, both of which are (scalar) parameters for our universe. If memory serves, both values may have changed over time, but they are valid everywhere.
dickthegrouch
(3,590 posts)5. Both of which depend on units of time
Speed = Meters per second
Gravity = Meters per second squared
IIRC.