Is Our Entire Universe Held Together By One Mysterious Number?

1/137 is a universal constant that determines how stars burn, how chemical reactions happen, and if it were off by just a few percentage points—all of this might not even be here. But what happens if it shifts?

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Seeker inspires us to see the world through the lens of science and evokes a sense of curiosity, optimism and adventure.

[taiken]

1/137 is APPROXIMATELY the fine structure constant. It’s more like 1/137.035999174. Your video talks about how finely tuned the number has to be and then never explains that 1/137 is approximate, which is incredibly misleading.

[adityakashyap]

I got 1/137 in my physics test. Coincidence? I think not!😳

[arjenb]

8:15, watch the books above his head,


they are moving!

[grangermigel]

"Small change in alpha will change everything"

Meanwhile engineers: "lets round that .25 to zero."

[Robert_St-Preux]

The Fibonacci sequence tile in the thumbnail is 1) what caused me to click, and 2) nowhere in the video. Science videos have clickbait, too?

[enso]

1/137
.007
Alpha
So yeah, it's James Bond

OR

Constant
1/137
c 137
It's Rick Sanchez

[Ebola-Kun]

Gyro Zeppeli taught me about the golden rotation

[waysideme]

Dimension less numbers are so cool and useful being applied in so many things. Numbers being dimension less allow us to take advantage of so many physical properties. For example in a wind tunnel testing the shape of an airplane we can use a small model and scale those results up to real size because of Renoulds number.

[basicnpcc]

Looks like we found our world seed boys.

[eskanderx]

Constants aren't tuned for us - we are fine "tuned" for them.
With different constants, there would be a different universe, fine tuned for them.

[jeffreyjdesir]

I can't wait till my great grandkids laugh at times we lumped gravity in with the other standard forces XD

[tuber]

It's interesting the way he explains it, how somehow it is finely tuned for us. This is quite an ego-centric view, or human-centric view. It it probably more correct to say that we have been finely tuned to exist in this universe, not the other way around. Think about it, would it be easier to make an entire universe fit human life, or would it be easier to fit human life into the universe?

[vcoski]

137th simulation of the Project Universe.

[sebione]

Now to reverse engineer this information to get the winning lottery numbers..

[Master_Therion]

The reciprocal of 137 is important in physics...
While 1337 is important to the internet/computers. R U 4 h4x0r 0r 4 n00b?

[filipsperl]

I strongly agree with the last point that was made. Either in this one universe, or in this local region of the universe, the constants are what they are, because otherwise we wouldn't be able to measure them, because we wouldn't even exist.

[airplayn]

I used the 1/137 fine structure constant as an integral part of my Cosmological poem, "Existance Extant". After reading it, Dr. Lawrence Krauss, who is an internationally recognized Cosmologist said, "It's got the physics right but I don't know enough about poetry to judge the rest" ;-)



Existence Extant

Once merely a shower
Condensed creation unclouded
Hundred thirty seventh's power
Foaming structure enshrouded

Entropic decision
Magic fractional form
Constructs to precision
Planks of relative norm

Hottest heat from sublime
Cooled now coldest of cold
Gritty sand flows of time
Now forever grow old

Seen seer of sight
Thinker entire from thought
A consciousness bright
Existence from naught

Bubbled living from Space-time
Single multiplied to anthropic
Oozed philosophical slime
Forming life kaleidoscopic

Your existence is futile
Fresh mint observers of all
Transcendence dims, rueful
Amid creation seems small

Yet this child of pure stardust
On a small pale blue dot
Quest the extant of existence
Of matter’s why or why not

Philosophical stance
Intellectually derived
Existentialist’s dance?
Finally, wisdom arrived

My humble attempt to merge cosmology & consciousness in an ode to relative reality

Tim Kiehl

emergeART ™ ©2016

[mspointsfre]

There's a ton of values in our universe that if they were slightly different we couldn't exist.

[blvckjack]

I think we should look for Professor Hank Pym.

[robertrosenthal]

The universe is not finely tuned for us, we are finely tuned for this universe.
It's a given that any universe that has life will have life that is finely tuned for that universe, if it has any form of life at all.