Why the number 137 is one of the greatest mysteries in universe does the universe around us have a fundamental structure that can be glimpsed through special numbers the brilliant physicist Richard Fineman famously thought so saying there is a number that all theoretical physicists of worth should worry about he called it one of the greatest mysteries of physics.
A magic number that comes to us with no understanding by man from physics mathematics and science to mysticism occultism. The number 137 may just be the most magical and important number in the universe, but what do you think the key to unlocking the mysteries of the universes?
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| Magic number 137 |
The number 137 or 1/137 is denoted by the Greek letter alpha. What’s so special about Alpha?
It's regarded as the best example of a pure number. That doesn't need units those three digits as it turns out have long been the rare object of fascination that bridges the gulf between science and mysticism 137, continues to fire the imagination of everyone from scientists and mystics to occultists and people from the far flung edges of society.
Arthur I Miller an emeritus professor of history and philosophy of science at University College London said to physicists, 137 is the approximate denominator of the fine-structure constant the measure of the strength of the electromagnetic force, that controls how charged elementary particles such as the electron and muon interact with photons of light.
According to the National Institute of Standards and Technology the fine-structure constant is one of the key physical constants of the universe this immutable number determines how stars burn, how chemistry happens and even whether atoms exist at all. Michael Brooks explained in a recent New Scientist article “the fine-structure constant characterizes the strength with which matter couples to light” for example the probability that an excited atom will decay in a certain time.
Paul Davies Regents professor of physics at Arizona State University and a best-selling author of 30 books on science explained, if the constant was bigger atoms would decay faster, it is significant too because it is a pure number a ratio of quantities with equal units unlike say the speed of light which is either 186,000 miles per second or 300,000 kilometres per second, depending on which units you prefer. British physicist Lawrence Eve's a professor at the University of Nottingham explains that if the fine-structure constant was a different value physics, chemistry, biochemistry would be totally different and we might not be around to talk about it but practically from the time of its discovery in 1915 by German physicist Arnold Sommerfeld who originally rendered it as 0.00729, the fine-structure constant seemed to signify some larger metaphysical truth as well the fine-structure constant determines the distance between an atom spectral lines, which are the atoms DNA and so it is one of those numbers that is at the root of the universe if it were any other value than the structure of matter would be very different and so us two people began referring to it as a mystical number the language of the spectra the spectral lines were Sommerfeld found it is a true music of the spheres within the atom. Miller said now you may think why it has this particular value? Physicists could only conclude that it cannot have this value by accident, it is out there independent of the structure of our minds.
But in 1929 English astrophysicist Arthur Eddington who played a key role in establishing the validity of Albert Einstein's general theory of relativity and was an early advocate of the Big Bang Theory among other things began expressing it as 1 / 130. He also saw it as having larger spiritual implications, Arthur Eddington sought a new mysticism which would emerge from the natural sciences perhaps he thought the clue lay in numbers particularly the number 137. Edington’s reputation as one of the great astrophysicists of his day put a great deal of weight on this approach as, Milers book details Austrian-born quantum physics pioneer Wolfgang Pauli became fascinated with the number as well. Since it figured in the mysterious intersection of relativity and quantum theory, that he explored with the help of his friend psychoanalyst Carl Jung. The scientific fixation on the fine-structure constant was such that in 1936 nature published an article titled ‘The mysterious number 137’. Physicist Lawrence Eve's a professor at the University of Nottingham thinks the number 137 would be the one you'd signal to the aliens to indicate that we have some measure of mastery over our planet and understand quantum mechanics.
