Even on a black hole’s turf, an essential constant of nature holds steady. According to standard physics, the fine-structure constant, which governs interactions of electrically charged particles, is ...

In physics, the Fine Structure Constant is one the strangest numbers. The Fine Structure Constant is one the strangest numbers in all of physics. It’s the job of physicists to worry about numbers, but ...

Cosmologists in the US have proposed a new way to measure the fine-structure constant as it was some 13 billion years ago -- and see if its value differed from that measured today. The method, which ...

Legislators change laws from time to time, but Mother Nature's laws are eternal -- or so it has seemed. Now, though, scientists are debating clues that suggest the laws of physics change over time.

ADVANCES in fundamental theory have often been guided by the principle that reliance is to be placed on the most directly observed quantities, that is, those involving least theoretical assumptions.

One of the most exciting prospects in physics has been discovering that fundamental constants are not actually constant at all. When I first started writing, physicists and astronomers were just ...

One of the most cherished principles in science - the constancy of physics – apparently may not be true. A new study, using data from the world's largest optical telescopes, suggests that one of the ...

A new measurement of the fine-structure constant is three times more accurate than before. The constant helps glue together "coarse" and "fine" measurement of particles. The new measurement bests a ...

Physicists have made the most accurate measurement to date of the fine-structure constant, alpha -- the dimensionless number that is a measure of the strength of the electromagnetic force. The new ...

Electronics is really an applied branch of physics, so it isn’t surprising that if you are serious about your electronics, you probably know a little physics, too. If you’ve ever heard the term “fine ...