Laws of physics vary throughout Universe?

[Cain]

Hmm?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100909004112.htm

A team of astrophysicists based in Australia and England has uncovered evidence that the laws of physics are different in different parts of the universe.

The team — from the University of New South Wales, Swinburne University of Technology and the University of Cambridge — has submitted a report of the discovery for publication in the journal Physical Review Letters. A preliminary version of the paper is currently under peer review.

The report describes how one of the supposed fundamental constants of Nature appears not to be constant after all. Instead, this 'magic number' known as the fine-structure constant — 'alpha' for short — appears to vary throughout the universe.

"After measuring alpha in around 300 distant galaxies, a consistency emerged: this magic number, which tells us the strength of electromagnetism, is not the same everywhere as it is here on Earth, and seems to vary continuously along a preferred axis through the universe," Professor John Webb from the University of New South Wales said.

"The implications for our current understanding of science are profound. If the laws of physics turn out to be merely 'local by-laws', it might be that whilst our observable part of the universe favours the existence of life and human beings, other far more distant regions may exist where different laws preclude the formation of life, at least as we know it."

"If our results are correct, clearly we shall need new physical theories to satisfactorily describe them."

Yeah, just slightly important, figuring out whether the laws of the Universe are, you know, universal.

[Jasper]

Oh fuck everything.  Really?

No.  I don't believe it. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

NEAT!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

"Your mileage may vary". 

[Jasper]

I realized, belatedly, that there is no way I will ever understand anything true about reality.

At first this bothered me, but I'm starting to find it somewhat liberating.

[Telarus]

I realized, belatedly, that there is no way I will ever understand anything true about reality.

At first this bothered me, but I'm starting to find it somewhat liberating.

There is no tyranny in the State of Confusion!

[Kai]

Personally, I'm going with "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". For now, at least.

[Bruno]

Yeah. I'm not going to get too excited about this until it gets a little further down the peer review chain.

[Jasper]

Personally, I'm going with "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". For now, at least.

Yes it does.  Thanks for mentioning that, I was too stunned to think of it.

[Jasper]

An alternative possibility:  There is an unknown somewhere that is messing with measurements of alpha.  I don't know how it's done, so I can't really guess though.  Point being, what sounds more likely?  That the fine structure constant of the universe changes based on who knows what, or that there's something wrong with the way we're measuring it?

[Faust]

The wording of that is wrong, The laws do remain consistent across the universe.
However certain constants used in those equations do of course vary. Even on this planet it is possible to observe that the acceleration due to gravity is different from place to place. On average it is 9.1 but the further from the earth you get the weaker it becomes.

There is also the obvious example of time dilation and two different bodies being governed by a different progression of time depending on their speed, different time constants same laws.

It stands to reason that the electromagnetic fields constants impact across the universe could vary depending on the large scale conditions of each area it acts upon.

[Cain]

I did wonder that Faust, but it sounded a little obvious.  Then again, maybe this study was blown out of proportion by a reporter somewhere down the chain who misunderstood that was the claim being made, and rushed a piece off before double-checking.

It doesn't seem to be that way, from the article, but it could be.  Regardless, I'd like a look at the paper itself, when it's published.

[Faust]

I did wonder that Faust, but it sounded a little obvious.  Then again, maybe this study was blown out of proportion by a reporter somewhere down the chain who misunderstood that was the claim being made, and rushed a piece off before double-checking.

It doesn't seem to be that way, from the article, but it could be.  Regardless, I'd like a look at the paper itself, when it's published.

It does seem to of course be the journalist blowing things out of proportion, A lot of our laws in relation to electromagnetism come from a process called Renormalisation, which was basically putting measured values into equations where the theoretical variable made the equations unsolvable.
If the "The fine structure constant" is derived in any way using these renormalised equations, then it is governed by our local conditions in space, and its entirely possible for it to be different elsewhere.

[Igor]

The paper is on the arXiv, here: PDF

They've used two different data sets, from two different telescopes pointed in two different directions. They stress that this removes any possible systematic errors. They do not find the same variation in alpha in both directions. In one direction it's bigger than here, the other smaller.

They say that the result is significant to 4.1 sigma. In particle physics, a 5 or 6 sigma certainty is usually used for confirming a new particle, which means that you only get a false positive once in a couple of million times.

4 sigma, I think, would mean "something may be here, but more measurements are necessary".

From their conclusions:

Qualitatively, our results suggest a violation of
the Einstein Equivalence Principle, and could infer a very
large or infinite universe, within which our `local' Hubble
volume represents a tiny fraction, with correspondingly
small variations in the physical constants.

I'm not sure how these follow, to be honest. Anything outside our Hubble volume is by definition unobservable (the light from outside it would take longer than the age of the universe to reach us) so I don't know how they're drawing conclusions about that.

[Kai]

I'm not sure how these follow, to be honest. Anything outside our Hubble volume is by definition unobservable (the light from outside it would take longer than the age of the universe to reach us) so I don't know how they're drawing conclusions about that.

Exactly.

The wording of that is wrong, The laws do remain consistent across the universe.
However certain constants used in those equations do of course vary. Even on this planet it is possible to observe that the acceleration due to gravity is different from place to place. On average it is 9.1 but the further from the earth you get the weaker it becomes.

There is also the obvious example of time dilation and two different bodies being governed by a different progression of time depending on their speed, different time constants same laws.

It stands to reason that the electromagnetic fields constants impact across the universe could vary depending on the large scale conditions of each area it acts upon.

Not to mention that amplitude configurations and quantum physics are inherently local.