The Constants of Nature: From Alpha to Omega

by John D. Barrow

good condition

Genres: Science, Physics, Nonfiction, Mathematics, Philosophy, Popular Science, Ebooks

256 pages, Hardcover

First published November 26, 2002

About the author

John D. Barrow was a professor of mathematical sciences and director of the Millennium Mathematics Project at Cambridge University and a Fellow of the Royal Society.

He was awarded the 2006 Templeton Prize for "Progress Toward Research or Discoveries about Spiritual Realities" for his "writings about the relationship between life and the universe, and the nature of human understanding [which] have created new perspectives on questions of ultimate concern to science and religion".

He was a member of a United Reformed Church, which he described as teaching "a traditional deistic picture of the universe".

Reviews

[Jim Fonseca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Let’s start with what this book is not about. It’s not about mathematical constants such as pi and little e, the natural logarithm. It is about constants of physics such as Planck’s constant, the speed of light and the gravitational constant. One of its basic questions is: how constant are constants?

The book is primarily about cosmology focused around the question, is the universe expanding or contracting? What happens to these physical constants in these cases? Are they the same everywhere in the universe at all times and in all places, or can they vary based on expansion and contraction of the universe?


The graph above shows the intensity of light emitted from a black body. Each curve represents behavior at different body temperatures. The Planck constant h is used to explain the shape of these curves. (from Wikipedia)

If the expansion of the universe is slowing, will it eventually stop and re-implode - The Big Crash - perhaps leading to another Big Bang? On the other hand, if the universe is expanding, as it appears to be, and if it continues to expand at an increasing rate, what will happen?

Since you are reading this review, you have probably had at least college math and that is generally sufficient to understand and to enjoy this book. It is not heavy math; the reading level is more like Discovery Magazine or Scientific American. An exception is the last section where the author explores new territory, apparently his own research, and the math gets heavy for the ordinary reader (for me, anyway).

Because these constants might indeed vary over space or over time, it’s fascinating to read the author’s explanation of how little they can vary, at least based on the ranges we know of in the known universe. But how do we truly know?

The author (1952-2020) was a professor of math at Cambridge University and he wrote more than 25 books like this one, all about science and math and mainly focused on cosmology.

[Jamie Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you decide to read this book, get the print version. I read the Amazon ebook, and the software that was used to make the digital conversion had problems with Greek letters and math symbols, so most of the time alpha, beta, pi, and the square root symbol were rendered as question marks. For example, the caption to Figure 12.4 starts with, “The relative shift (??/?) in the value of the fine structure constant...” Well that’s helpful. In addition, the images and equations printed as graphics are tiny and faint, almost impossible to decipher. Amazon does occasionally release updates to its ebook editions, so it is possible that this will be fixed in the future, but for now it is a mess.

It is a pity that the presentation of this book is so annoying, because the content is really interesting. I admit that when I picked it up I thought it was going to be about the histories and uses of the kinds of symbols we all grew up using, such as pi, e, and c, with perhaps things like Avogadro’s Number thrown in. Nope, it is about the cosmological constants that give form and structure to the universe, such as the fine structure constant, Planck’s constant, the speed of light, and similar values which shape the cosmos into something that can support life as we understand it.

The physicist George Gamov created a wonderful little explanation tying the constants together. I can’t summarize it any better than this book's author did, so I will use his words:

[Consider] the central importance of the constants of Nature characterizing gravity (G), quantum reality (h), and light (c). We can use them to paint a simple picture of the correspondences between different laws of Nature. We need only to appreciate a simple principle. When G is set to zero we are turning off the force of gravity and ignoring it; when h is set to zero we are ignoring the quantum nature of the Universe, through which energies can only take on particular values, like steps on a ladder. The size of the steps between the rungs are fixed by h. If h were zero there would be no gaps and the energy of an atom could change by any value, no matter how small. Third, when c is set equal to infinity (or, what is the same thing, 1/c equal to zero) then light signals move with infinite speed. This was the picture in Newton’s day, with gravity acting instantaneously between the Earth and the Sun.

If all three of these constants are set to zero you get Newtonian Mechanics. Leave g and h at zero but apply c and you get Special Relativity. Set c and G equal to zero and apply h and you get Quantum Mechanics. Apply h and G but leave c at zero and you have Newton’s theory of gravity. Set h to zero and apply G and c and you get Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, which can also be reached by applying gravity to Special Relativity. Start with Quantum Mechanics and apply a finite value of 1/c and you reach Quantum Field Theory. From there set 1/c=0 and you get the quantum version of Newtonian gravity. Finally, apply all of them to get a theory that is relativistic, gravitational, and quantum and you reach that mysterious, as yet undiscovered unified Theory of Everything. (pg. 57-59)

This is the kind of thing you read, then re-read a couple of times, then lean back and stare at the ceiling for a while.

There is also an excellent discussion of the conditions which must exist for the universe to be hospitable to life. Notwithstanding the caveat that life may have evolved in forms completely different from our own, it would be unlikely to exist anywhere if gravity were slightly heavier, thus pulling the expanding primordial matter back before it had the time to form stars, galaxies, and the heavier elements. Another such constraint, which I had not heard of before, is that “a change of more than 0.4 per cent in the constants governing the strength of the strong nuclear force or more than 4 per cent in the fine structure constant would destroy almost all carbon or almost all oxygen in every star.” (p.155)

The author also makes a few comments on what an advanced extraterrestrial life form may be like

we see a trend in our own technological societies towards the fabrication of smaller and smaller machines that consume less and less energy and produce almost no waste. Taken to its logical conclusion, we expect advanced life-forms to be as small as the laws of physics allow...we might mention that this could explain why there is no evidence of extraterrestrial life in the Universe. If it is truly advanced, even by our standards, it will most likely be very small, down to the molecular scale. All sorts of advantages then accrue. There is lots of room there – huge populations can be sustained. Powerful, intrinsically quantum computation can be harnessed. Little raw material is required and space travel is easier. You can also avoid being detected by civilizations of clumsy bipeds living on bright planets that beam continuous radio noise into interplanetary space.” (p.170)

There is only one statement the author makes that brought me up short. Either I am misunderstanding what he is getting at or there is a typo in the text. On page 252 is the statement, “light travels at a finite speed and so the farther away a star is from us the longer it has taken for its light to reach us. In the case of the Sun the light travel time is very short, about 3 seconds.” Really? Given the distance the Sun is from the earth it should take about 8 minutes for its light to reach us.

Finally, there is a discussion about whether constants are truly constant or if they were different in the early universe, and perhaps may be slowly changing even today. This raises the interesting possibility that we live within a finite slice of time where the conditions of life are possible, and that in the future the changing constants may close that window and extinguish life.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I found lots of new information that I had not known, and the author does a great job of setting up thought provoking scenarios that the reader keeps coming back to again and again.

[Roger · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don't be misled by title - this is a book about cosmology, the structure of the universe, and how life, of the sort we know, fits in. I struggled with the first few chapters because I didn't feel that the author really explained why so few fundamental physical constants (primarily, the speed of light, the gravitational constant and Planck's constant) are needed to describe the universe. I was expecting there to be a lot more, such as the masses of the particles comprising the standard model, the strength of the Higgs' field, etc, and Barrow didn't seek to explain why these were not fundamental constants. And having finished the book I'm still somewhat in the dark on this matter!

But as the book progressed, so it got a little better. There was much to read about the Anthropic Principle, which I found very interesting. Barrow also addressed the question of whether the constants are actually constant or whether they have changed (or are changing) with time, and here he introduced some of his own research.

I learnt a lot from this book. Nevertheless, overall I'm not convinced that the author has really done justice to the subject in the title, "The Constants of Nature", because I don't think it ever fully recovers from what I found was a challenging start. Also, for me, Barrow made too many assumptions about my prior knowledge of this subject so I struggled to understand many of the points he was making. This is not a book for the faint-hearted.

[Michael A. Sherbon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breezy read, with some humorous quotes. Good overall review and a little heavy on the possibility of changing constants. “Since only a narrow range of the allowed values for, say, the fine structure constant will permit observers to exist in the Universe, we must find ourselves in the narrow range of possibilities which permit them, no matter how improbable they are. We must ask for the conditional probability of observing constants to take particular ranges, given that other features of the Universe, like its age, satisfy necessary conditions for life.” Main constant is the fine-structure constant:

1/α ≈ 157 − 337ρ/7 ≈ 137.035 999 168, with the prime constant ρ ≈ 0.414 682 509 851 111.

Sherbon, M.A. "Wolfgang Pauli and the Fine-Structure Constant," Journal of Science, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp.148-154 (2012).

Sherbon, M.A. "Fundamental Nature of the Fine-Structure Constant," International Journal of Physical Research, 3, 2(1):1-9 (2014).

Sherbon, M.A. "Quintessential Nature of the Fine-Structure Constant" GJSFR 15, 4: 23-26 (2015).

Sherbon, M.A. “Fine-Structure Constant from Golden Ratio Geometry,” International Journal of Mathematics and Physical Sciences Research, 5, 2, 89-100 (2018).

Latest experimental-QED determination of the fine structure constant: Aoyama, T., Hayakawa, M., Kinoshita, T. & Nio, M. "Tenth-Order Electron Anomalous Magnetic Moment - Contribution of Diagrams without Closed Lepton Loops," Physical Review D, 91, 3, 033006 (2015).

The improved value of the fine-structure constant 1/α = 137.035 999 157 (41)....

Fine Structure Constant Quotes www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/fine-str...

[Manuel Taboada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesantísimo libro de divulgación científica acerca de las constantes fundamentales del Universo. Dichas constantes regulan desde las leyes fundamentales de la física hasta las propiedades de átomos y galaxias.

Más allá de lo que acontecería si sus valores variasen unas milésimas, o de conocer si han permanecido inalteradas durante la vida del Universo y si son iguales en todas las regiones del espacio; más allá aún de la posibilidad de que existan otros mundos o subespacios con un conjunto distinto de valores, o de si tienen o no un valor fijado por una Teoría del todo; más allá de todos estos aspectos (que son explorados en el libro), lo que encuentro más apasionante es que nos revela que el Universo es como es porque hay observadores en él, es decir, porque estamos nosotros. Desde los valores de las constantes (con una precisión de muchos decimales), hasta el número de dimensiones de la realidad y sus tamaños, pasando por la edad del Universo, su velocidad de expansión, su tamaño, los procesos inflacionarios y las rupturas de simetría que ocurrieron durante su comienzo o la forma en que se produjo la distribución de su material, todo está perfectamente ajustado y sintonizado para que pueda existir la vida con la complejidad que lo conocemos. Es lo que Barrow dio a conocer con el nombre de “principio antrópico”: El Universo es como es porque, si no, no habría observadores complejos como nosotros estudiándolo. En cierto modo, este principio antrópico parece una vía de escape ante la pregunta sobre cuál es la probabilidad de que hayan podido darse unas condiciones tan precisas como para permitir nuestra existencia, especialmente considerando que cualquier pequeña modificación conduciría a universos en los que no podría darse la vida como la conocemos.

Aviso a navegantes: quien no esté familiarizado con determinados aspectos de la física actual, aunque sea a nivel divulgativo, puede encontrar el libro difícil de entender; de hecho hay algunos párrafos de difícil comprensión.

[Moises Britez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Empecé este libro con algunas preguntas, las cuales no esperaba responder, pero si esclarecer en parte, al final se generaron nuevas preguntas sin apaciguar las iniciales, podría decirse sin embargo que en esa peculiaridad radica lo bueno de este libro. El autor aborda este tema con trasfondo filosófico, de una manera muy científica y de fácil alcance para quienes merodeamos con rueditas en el campo de las ciencias.

[Michael A. Sherbon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Breezy read, with some humorous quotes. Good overall review and a little heavy on the possibility of changing constants. “Since only a narrow range of the allowed values for, say, the fine structure constant will permit observers to exist in the Universe, we must find ourselves in the narrow range of possibilities which permit them, no matter how improbable they are. We must ask for the conditional probability of observing constants to take particular ranges, given that other features of the Universe, like its age, satisfy necessary conditions for life.” Main constant is the fine-structure constant:

1/α ≈ 157 − 337ρ/7 ≈ 137.035 999 168, with the prime constant ρ ≈ 0.414 682 509 851 111.

Sherbon, M.A. "Wolfgang Pauli and the Fine-Structure Constant," Journal of Science, Vol. 2, No. 3, pp.148-154 (2012).

Sherbon, M.A. "Fundamental Nature of the Fine-Structure Constant," International Journal of Physical Research, 3, 2(1):1-9 (2014).

Sherbon, M.A. "Quintessential Nature of the Fine-Structure Constant" GJSFR 15, 4: 23-26 (2015).

Latest experimental-QED determination of the fine structure constant: Aoyama, T., Hayakawa, M., Kinoshita, T. & Nio, M. "Tenth-Order Electron Anomalous Magnetic Moment - Contribution of Diagrams without Closed Lepton Loops," Physical Review D, 91, 3, 033006 (2015).

The improved value of the fine-structure constant 1/α = 137.035 999 157 (41)....

Fine Structure Constant Quotes www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/fine-str...

[Tuomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Constants are a topic that interests me greatly, since I've written about them in my own philosophical work. Barrow is the first-hand authority on the topic, given his involvement in the team that found possible variation of the fine-structure constant via observation of quasars. So I was excited to finally read this book, even though it's over a decade old now. And it is a good book: very catchy writing and nice anecdotes. However, for someone who already knew much of the relevant data, this was a little too "popular". The punch line came very late in the book and the speculation that followed was a bit fluffy. While I'd recommend the book to those who don't know much about the topic yet, it's perhaps not the best source of further information even for interested amateurs like myself.

[Ami Iida · Rating 5 out of 5]

the university's constants has expands to solve various things!!

[Robbie D · Rating 5 out of 5]

An interesting view on some fascinating numbers

[Kajetan Walczak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great book. I didn't understand half of it. Also, it's awesome to see data from space probes actually used in action (to measure fundamental constants of the universe).

[L · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear-eyed and thought-provoking exploration of our quest to discover and understand the fundamental physical constants of our universe (and an infinity of possible others).

[Amol Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a fantastic book on constants and what they are? We all have knew about constant values in science like constant of gravity, speed of light. We have consider these values are never change anywhere. How scientist find out these values Barrow discussed all about in this book. Barrow is great story teller of difficult subjects in sciences. He started book from the human quest of measuring thing and make measurement standard for all. He tells about how different standard units like pound, kilogram came into use. In further chapters he narrates how these standards are very limited in use. For measuring electron we required some other units obviously one can convert these units from one to another but different things required different ways of measuring. He also discussed about reality of numbers of constants. Do these constants are always constants or they are also changing. What kind of fate our universe will have in changing constant criteria and steady constant criteria. Book is content with historical events, Science philosophy and scientific information. Anyone who is slightly interested in science can read this book.

[Suyog Garg · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book certainly is written after extensive research on the topic and the author been an University Professor is aptly one of the best to refer on the topic. The writing style, words and sentence structure are also well suited for the kind of popular science book like this. The reason of two stars is that although the book is certainly a good read on the topics like Cosmological constants, multiverse, big band, extra dimensions etc., it isn’t what the misleading subtitle ‘From alpha to omega’ promises. When I bought this book I had anticipated a history of origin, usage, numerical value, significance and discussion on the constancy of constants like pi, golden ratio, e, Planck constant among many other. What I had not envisaged was chapters similar to numerous other book for instance penned by Brian Greene etc. All in all, I would say the verdict is that you gonna love the book if you are a bit philosophically inclined.

[Voyt · Rating 4 out of 5]

Innovative and refreshing text.
POSTED AT AMAZON 2003
In his previous book "The Book of Nothing", John Barrow presents a vacuum and uses it to show us its new meaning. Now he finds another interesting topic - constants of Nature in science (mostly "fine structure" constant but not exclusively), and uses them to teach us about unknown history and measurements in modern cosmology. I find his cube of theories and colorful description of many forms of multiverses (including the one having different times dimension) very educative.
Extra flavor is added in chapter 9 (about "virtual history"). It brings some humor and relaxes in the middle of not so easy subjects. Especially chapter 11 requires extra effort and figure 11.6 is missing from the hardcover edition. Generally: book represents another great effort in popularizing sophisticated top end of a science. Hopefully I will remember formula: 2(pi)e^2/hc for a long time to come.

[Alex Shrugged · Rating 5 out of 5]

I already knew a lot of this material, but I was still amazed at how well the author put this stuff together. He got into a lot of detail (which I like) without overwhelming me (except for a couple of times, but I forgive him).

The publisher's description says what the book is about well enough.

This is not a book for beginners. Also note that I had read his other book before, "The Anthropic Cosmological Principle" which was an even more detailed and a (mostly) deeper dive into this stuff.

I got this book from the library, so I doubt I will be reading it again any time soon, but I'd love to.

[Betsy · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have an undergraduate degree in Physics and Chemistry and graduate degrees in Computer Science and mathematics but this book defeated me. The author seemed to be attempting to identify dimensionless quantities from which all physical constants could be derived. At some point he stepped off into something that began to sound a lot like numerology. He appeared to be drawing some kind of mystical connection between the magnitudes of some of these constants. I could make very little sense of this book even after going back to the beginning and starting over. I finally gave up part way through it.

[David Knaack · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a way to understand the gravitational constant, the fine structure constant, and others, it is a useful exercise to see what the math predicts if you give them new values and plug them into the equations underlying important astronomical and quantum principles. If you write half a book about doing this it is meaningless fantasy. Kudos to Barrow for his historical discussion of Newtonian and quantum physics. There is little here beyond that, and less about the mysterious constants themselves. Three stars for the first third of the book and to acknowledge the authors is a smart guy.

[Lilith · Rating 3 out of 5]

può un libro che parla di numeri scientificamente immensi e tecnicamente per esperti essere scorrevole? La risposta è no. Questo libro parla di tutto ciò? Si. Quindi non è scorrevole? Ni. A tratti riesce ad essere piuttosto interessante anche per i non addetti ai lavori. Senza dubbio un buon lavoro. Voto 6,5

[Richard Wagner · Rating 3 out of 5]

Guter Start; in der zweiten Hälfte aber sehr mühsam, spekulativ, sprunghaft,
oberflächlich und nicht mehr auf aktuellem Stand.

Schade drum.
--
Good first chapters; becomes in the second half, however, very boring, speculative, erratic, superficial and no longer up to date

A pity.

[Rod Innis · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book. The author talks about the fine tuning of the universe and yet seems to reject a tuner.

[Amedeo Balbi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ne parlo qui: http://www.keplero.org/2008/12/i-nume...

[Becky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was basically on the cosmological constants. I was actually hoping to see something on the mathematical ones as well. Oh well, not the first time misled by a cover!

[Tim Finn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good overview of how the small relates to the big. Quite technical at points without much introduction. Overall a good read

[Ester De Marinis]

0

[C R · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn’t quite finish, but had enough. Interesting topic and some interesting segments, but ultimately wasn’t the best.

[Don Hardison · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not very good

[Id2980 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Underrated

[Kurt · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very didactic and interesting book, to understand some of the constants of the nature through the math and physical point of view!

[Rama Rao · Rating 5 out of 5]

Changing Constants

n order to explain physical reality, physicists measure and determine physical quantities/parameters/information related to the object/subject in question using well defined laws such as; the laws of classical physics (theory relativity), quantum mechanics, and thermodynamics. Physicists do not know the details of all the laws, and their interpretations/explanations often vary, but the physical laws themselves are the same across the universe. Einstein's principle of covariance states that laws of nature should appear the same for all observers in the universe no matter where they are located or how they are moving. The equations and the fundamental constants that write these laws are universal, but as physicists try to explain how the universe works, it is increasingly becoming apparent to a few physicists that some fundamental constants such as the speed of light (c), fine-structure constant, proton-electron mass ratio, and gravity (G) have changed over the last 13.7 billion light years.

The author chronicles the historical development in the physics research of universal constant and touches upon the most fundamental part of creation. How do these constants that are a part of an equation could have impacted a functional universe that supports life? Mathematician Ramanujan once said that "An equation has no meaning unless it expresses the thought of God." The dimensionless constant is certainly the thought of God. Time variation of fundamental constants is subjected to theoretical and experimental research by a number of physicists such as; Arthur Eddington, Paul Dirac, George Gamow, Robert Dicke, Brendan Carter and others. The fine-structure constant was originally introduced in 1916 by Arnold Sommerfeld, as a measure of the relativistic deviations in atomic spectral lines of the Bohr's atomic model. This constsnt is interpreted as a measure of electromagnetic force that holds the atoms together or the strength of the interaction between electrons and photons; the ratio of two energies, the energy needed to bring two electrons from infinity to a distance against their electrostatic repulsion, and the energy of a single photon. It is also defined as the ratio of the strengths of the electromagnetic and gravitational interactions. This constant is a dimensionless quantity (1/137.035999679); hence its numerical value is independent of the system of units used. Many physicists have wondered why God would have created such an odd number for this constant (value of Pi is another example.) One explanation is the cosmological evolution of a quintessence-like scalar field coupled to gauge fields and matter would have effectively modified the coupling constants and particle masses over time. However, the anthropic principle states that the value of the fine-structure is what it is because stable matter could not have existed in the universe if that was any other number. In other words, galaxies, stars, planetary systems and life forms would not have evolved. For instance, if this constsnt was changed by 4%, carbon and oxygen would not have been produced in stars.

Since fine-structure constant is present wherever electromagnetism is, it is determined by various methods from atomic spectra. One is by analyzing the atomic spectra of distant galaxies and stars. The second one is the natural reactor of Oklo has been used to check if the atomic fine-structure constant might have changed over the past 2 billion years. That is because it influences the rate of nuclear reactions. For example, Samarium(149) captures a neutron to become Samarium(150), and since the rate of neutron capture depends on the value of this constant, the ratio of the two samarium isotopes in samples from Oklo can be used to calculate the value of this constant that existed 2 billion years ago. The results are conflicting and it is not clear if these constant are changing. Despite the fact that this book has many irrelevant quotations from unorthodox figures such as; Joan Rivers, Woody Allen, Brooke Shields, W.C. Fields, and George Bush, it is highly recommended.