Fine Structure Constant Quotes

#1. ... it should be remembered that the atomicity of electric charge has already found its expression in the specific numerical value of the fine structure constant, a theoretical understanding of which is still missing today.

Wolfgang Pauli

#2. Fine Structure Constant: Fundamental numerical constant of atomic physics and quantum electrodynamics, defined as the square of the charge of the electron divided by the product of Planck's constant and the speed of light.

Steven Weinberg

#3. The theoretical determination of the fine structure constant is certainly the most important of the unsolved problems of modern physics.

Wolfgang Pauli

#4. The fine structure constant is undoubtedly the most fundamental pure (dimensionless) number in all of physics. It relates the basic constants of electromagnetism (the charge of the electron), relativity (the speed of light), and quantum mechanics (Planck's constant).

David J. Griffiths

#5. [The fine structure constant] ... defines how firmly atomic nuclei bind together and how all the atoms on Earth were made. Its value controls the power from the Sun and, more sensitively, how stars transmute hydrogen into all the atoms of the periodic table.

Martin J. Rees

#6. In particular, a quantity known as the fine-structure constant, which controls the basic fingerprinting for every element, must have remained unchanged for billions of years. Of

Neil DeGrasse Tyson

#7. At his "World of Physics" Web site, Eric W. Weisstein notes that the fine structure constant continues to fascinate numerologists, who have claimed that connections exist between alpha, the Cheops pyramid, and Stonehenge!

Clifford A. Pickover

#8. Only three constants are significant for star formation: the gravitational constant, the fine structure constant, and a constant that governs nuclear reaction rates.

Ian Stewart

#9. 100 multiples of the Fine Structure Constant charges the King's Chamber volume based on a ratio of GPG's Base Diagonal Length Squared over the Speed of Light value.

Ibrahim Ibrahim

#10. Calculate the fine structure constant from first principles.

David J. Griffiths

#11. Some astrophysicists have convinced themselves that the fifth significant figure of the fine structure constant has changed over the past ten billion years.

Sheldon L. Glashow

#12. The strength of the electromagnetic interaction, for example, is fixed by a number called the "fine-structure constant," a famous quantity in physics that is numerically close to 1/137.

Sean Carroll

#13. There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... governing the strength of electromagnetic interactions, ...

Roger Penrose

#14. Number ... should not be understood solely as a construction of consciousness, but also as an archetype and thus as a constituent of nature both without and within.

Marie-Louise Von Franz

#15. To the factory farmer, in contrast to the traditional farmer with his sense of honor and obligation, the animals are 'production units,' and accorded all the sympathy that term suggests.

Matthew Scully

#16. The best way to keep from stumbling over the past was to move forward,

Susan Wiggs

#17. It would be foolish to be frightened by death, because all of us, sooner or later, are going to die. And only those who accept this fact are prepared for life.

Paulo Coelho

#18. Alpha sets the scale of nature
the size of atoms and all things made of them, the intensity and colors of light, the strength of magnetism, and the metabolic rate of life itself. It controls everything that we see ... In 137, apparently, science had found Nature's PIN Code.

Frank Close

#19. Sommerfeld's fine-structure theory was generally considered to be excellently and unambiguously confirmed by experiment. Because the theory rested on the foundation provided by Bohr, the experiments were also taken as strong support for his theory of atomic structure.

Helge Kragh

#20. When a well-educated young man first enters society he is liable to commit many errors which the world term childish, simply because he has not yet learned how childish grown men really are

Leopardi

#21. Let me tell you about love. Love is a kind of madness and you would follow it anywhere, you don't care.

Elizabeth Brundage

#22. We want to do sweaters for dogs and call it 'Bark Jacobs.' If it works, great. If it doesn't, we'll drop it and do something different.

Marc Jacobs

#23. Physicists love this number not just because it is dimensionless, but also because it is a combination of three fundamental constants of nature. Why do these constants come together to make the particular number 1/137.036 and not some other number?

John Archibald Wheeler

#24. Numbers, furthermore as archetypal structural constants of the collective unconscious, possess a dynamic, active aspect which is especially important to keep in mind. It is not what we can do with numbers but what they do to our consciousness that is essential.

Marie-Louise Von Franz

#25. When democratic governments create economic calamity, free markets get the blame.

Jack Kemp

#26. What can you pay for the way a man lives? What can you pay for what a man is?

Ken Kesey

#27. All integral laws of spectral lines and of atomic theory spring originally from the quantum theory. It is the mysterious organon on which Nature plays her music of the spectra, and according to the rhythm of which she regulates the structure of the atoms and nuclei.

Arnold Sommerfeld

#28. We have found that the values of the constants of nature have not been fine-tuned for life by accident, but that these values are constrained by and logically follow from the fundamental space-time organization of the Cosmic Tree of Life.

Carl Johan Calleman