Constant Uproar

As given by Britain's brilliant, opinionated Sir Arthur Stanley Eddington, the seven fundamental constants of Nature are:

e, the charge of an electron;

m, the mass of an electron (at rest);

M, the mass of a proton (at rest);

h, Planck's constant (of atomic action) ;

c, the velocity of light;

G, the constant of gravitation;

l ,the cosmical constant (of large-scale repulsion).

The first four constants are fundamental to Quantum Mechanics, which deals with the microcosm of the atom. The last two are fundamental to four-dimensional spacetime, which deals with the macrocosm of the universe. The velocity of light, c, is fundamental to both. According to Eddington, c is the natural "grain" of world structure. It is the velocity which cannot be surpassed, the speed at which masses become infinite, clocks stop, measuring rods contract to zero.

The assumption that these quantities are constants is more important than the exact determination of their values. Atom-smashers, cosmic ray observers and other experimentalists might not be seriously disturbed if the constants were not constant, but wavered imperceptibly within the limits of experimental error. But such a thing would have tremendous repercussions on the vast theoretical structure of Quantum Mechanics and Relativity, indeed on the whole philosophy of physics.

Five years ago measurements made in a mile-long vacuum tube in California showed apparent fluctuations in the speed of light up to 12 mi. per sec. Physicists promptly raised a hue & cry, which was quieted when the fluctuations were ascribed to that old standby, "experimental error," or to "disturbing influences of unknown origin"--i.e., movements of the earth, the moon, the tides. More recently there has been talk of certain other "constants" which varied widely enough to be clearly detected, and also of the possibility that all the constants may vary in amounts too small or over a time too long to permit detection. By last week the talk of inconstant constants had reached such a pitch that to the ears of interested laymen it was an uproar.

Jauncey's Electrons. One storm centre is an able, bald, self-critical physicist named George Eric MacDonnell Jauncey, who adorns the faculty of Washington University at St. Louis. Recently at a convention of scientists in Indianapolis, Dr. Jauncey described experiments which convinced him that the rest-masses of beta rays (fast electrons) shooting out of Radium E were variable (TIME, Jan. 17). He passed his electrons through a velocity selector, then estimated their masses by their behavior in electrical and magnetic fields. Since then Dr. Jauncey has bombarded the Physical Review with numerous communications backing up his announcement, has reproduced a film on which electrons apparently of varying mass made divergent tracks.

Other physicists have pitched into Jauncey arguing that his experiments are faulty, that experiments performed elsewhere with equal or greater care yield no such discomforting results. Crack Physicist Gordon Ferrie Hull of Dartmouth sarcastically observed that Isaac Newton waited 20 years to announce his law of gravitation, that Newton was right and has been right ever since. At a meeting of physicists in Manhattan last fortnight, Cornell's polite, Alsatian-born Dr. Hans A. Bethe, a brilliant analyst of electron behavior, said he did not know of a single physicist who would stand with Jauncey on the variable mass of electrons.

Dr. Jauncey might have hoped for support from his old colleague, Nobel Laureate Arthur Holly Compton of the University of Chicago, who, at the time of the Indianapolis meeting, pored over the Jauncey experiments, declared them competently done. Last week, however, in the Physical Review Dr. Compton published "An Alternative Interpretation of Jauncey's 'Heavy Electron' Spectra." Gist of Dr. Compton's suggestion was that some electrons, before entering the velocity selector, might bounce off a plate and pass on with only slightly diminished energy, thus making a false record.

Zwicky's Variables. Meanwhile Astrophysicist Fritz Zwicky of California Institute of Technology, a world-famed authority on supernovae (exploding stars) stepped out on the stage with indirect support for Jauncey. Zwicky's paper bore the terrifying title: "Intrinsic Variability of the So-Called Fundamental Physical Constants." Dr. Zwicky declared that such a "constant" as the electron's mass was dependent on the wholesale distribution of matter and radiation in the universe, and since that distribution must change in the course of a billion years, the "constants" dependent on it cannot be constant. He also suggested that in some violent collisions between particles, there may be an immediate change in either e, the charge, or m, the mass of an electron, and therefore a change in the ratio e/m. He mentioned an electron track photograph in Europe which seemed to show either a change in the ratio e/m or a violation of the principle of conservation of energy. Dr. Zwicky declared that formulations of natural law which depend on the assumption of sacrosanct constants--an assumption not verifiable by experiment-- "are intrinsically inadequate and must in course of time give way to statistically flexible formulations. . . ."

Expanding Universe? The question of constants is closely bound up with the magnificent conception of the Expanding Universe. Half way out to the fringes of the visible universe, the nebulae or star-galaxies appear to be rushing away from Earth at speeds up to 25,000 miles per second. The light from these nebulae is shifted toward the red end of the spectrum and ordinarily, such a shift indicates receding velocity. But the speeds are so big that many astronomers consider the Expanding Universe may be an illusion, have sought some other cause for the redshift in the spectrum. A decrease in Planck's constant h (energy of light multiplied by its vibration period) might be such a cause. Last year Britain's potent Theorist Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac suggested that the gravitational constant and certain others were dependent on t, the age of the universe, and were therefore slowly altering as the universe gets older. Last month in the Physical Review Mathematicians Samuel Sambursky and Max Schiffer of the Hebrew University in Palestine presented a detailed mathematical treatment of the idea that the universe is not expanding but appears to do so because the atomic measuring rods by which it is observed are shrinking--an illusion like that of Alice in Wonderland who, after nibbling a magic mushroom, found that the animals and everything around her were getting bigger because she was getting smaller.

One thing this constant uproar proved was that physical science is still lusty, ready to discard old theories if they get in the way of others newer and more useful.

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