The previous column ended with the question: “What does science say about the issue of constants in our universe of time and spaceIJ” It is important to give the answer of science to the question of constants because the modern world often has the habit of putting everything to the test of science. I had said in the last column that the space-time universe cannot have a constant.
To clarify why I say this, I will quote from my last column headlined Getting Nowhere All The Time. I had said: “A constant means being timeless, being the same at all times, not being bound by time, and, hence, going beyond time. And in thus, going beyond time, leave behind space too. For space and time are inextricably tied together. Every spatial reality is linked to time and time always has a spatial context. Space and time cannot be divorced from each other. They exist and perish together. This is my contention.”
The moment we hit a constant, we leap out of the space-time universe. While we are in space-time, we cannot have a constant, we cannot have something that does not change with time. Space-time will always change.
The issue of change and constants arose when I talked about law of nature in a previous column while discussing the essence or spirit of laws and their letter or literal aspect. I said that change is the fundamental law of nature. Besides many other areas of study, subjects like law of nature, change and constant are also in the domain of science.
The modern world believes in certain institutions and credentials on different issues. These authorities are primarily Western. They may geographically be anywhere but they are historically derived from some ideologies the West believes to have gifted the world. Among these ideologies is the much vaunted and celebrated ‘scientific temper’ which has taken the world by storm in the past few centuries.
This temper has become the unavoidable touchstone for everything. It has its own peculiar rules and regimen rooted in rigorously testing everything in ways that are believed to reveal the truth. And once this truth is declared at any point in time, it is considered quite sacrosanct. It is another matter that these holy truths have been overturned by newer findings innumerable times. This scientific temper at the vanguard of the furious research happening on all kinds of subjects is believed to be the most credible way of knowing reality.
It is held in much of the modern world that nothing can really be true unless it clears the science test. Science itself is travelling and has never reached any final destination. And reality is getting curiouser and curiouser. Indeed, being endlessly curious about everything is one of the commandments of science. I will come to the phrase ‘curiouser and curiouser’ in a future column. It is intricately related to the issues of space, time, change and constants.
I am a humble layman when it comes to science. But very logically and with utmost reason, I derive my own views on many issues. They are my own common sense realisations. They are prone to being dismissed as pedestrian ruminations of somebody who is not equipped to know what exactly he is talking about.
In that zone of questionability hangs my view that the law of nature is change and that there can be no constants in space-time. I have explained in my little quote above taken from my last column how I derive this view. As I said, science has not reached finality in anything till now notwithstanding its mesmerising rigour spread over centuries. I maintain that my utterly modest derivation reaches the point of finality.
It will not be overturned by time for it takes us beyond time. And it will not fail anywhere in the universe because it also goes beyond space. But the doubt can linger — how can this layman be talking any sense in terms of reaching a finality on subjects supremely endowed experts have not finished grappling withIJ So I will provide a peek into the view of science on these topics.
The stand of science that I provide to lend support to my view is still a journeying stand. But the terrain this stand has left behind journeying will give some intimation that I might actually be talking sense. So there we go into science. In the present understanding of physics, some fundamental quantities such as the strength of gravity, the speed of light in a vacuum and the charge on the electron are assumed to be constant. Professor John K Webb is in the School of Physics of the University of New South Wales, Sydney. In a publication titled Are the laws of nature changing with timeIJ he says in the introduction, “Precise measurements on the light from distant quasars suggest that the value of the fine-structure constant may have changed over the history of the universe. If confirmed, the results will be of enormous significance for the foundations of physics.”
I will explain the two terms — quasar and fine-structure constant — in the quote that might not be commonly understood. Quasars are thought to be hugely massive black holes at the centre of very distant galaxies. Says Webb: “The fine-structure constant (denoted by the Greek letter alpha) is a measure of the strength of the electromagnetic interaction, and it quantifies the strength with which electrons bind within atoms and molecules.”
He concludes his article saying, “It is possible that the value of alpha was changing relatively rapidly (by 1 part in 10 raised to the power of 5) in the first few billion years after the Big Bang... Confirmation that alpha is changing would have profound implications for physics. If the quasar results are eventually confirmed, our concepts of space and time are sure to undergo radical transformations. Who knows how this will change our fundamental understanding of the universeIJ”
Science, for all its brilliance, has not yet caught up with the ultimate truth. Webb says the phrase laws of nature evoke “a set of divine and unchanging rules that transcend the ‘here and now’ to apply everywhere and at all times in the universe”. On the relentless journey of science towards truth, it has been prodded by a stupendous suggestion coming from the distant reaches of nature that steadfast laws of nature are not really steadfast. The fine-structure constant is defined in terms of three other constants: the charge on an electron, the speed of light, and Planck’s constant. So if the fine-structure constant is changing and is actually not a constant, a question mark hangs on the constancy of the other three revered constants of science too.
I sign off now with just one more thought: I am not being grandiloquent when I say that change is the overarching law of nature. This is an ancient realisation of the East which I reached in my own way through my native enquiry.
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