Do the laws of physics evolve?

Question

Hubble's constant $a(t)$ appears to be changing over time. The fine stucture constant $\alpha$, like many others in QFT, is a running constant that varies, proportional to energy being used to measure it. Therefore, it could be agued that all running constants have 'evolved' over time as the Universe has expanded and cooled. Both the local and global curvature of the Universe changes over time implying that so too does the numerical value of $\pi$. All these things are however constants (well, let's say parameters since they are not really 'constant'.)

In a discussion with astronomer Sir Fred Hoyle, Feynman said "what today, do we not consider to be part of physics, that may ultimately become part of physics?" He then goes on to say "..it's interesting that in many other sciences there's a historical question, like in geology - the question how did the Earth evolve into the present condition? In biology - how did the various species evolve to get to be the way they are? But the one field that hasn't admitted any evolutionary question - is physics."

So have the laws of physics remained form-invariant over the liftetime of the Universe? Does the recent understanding of the aforementioned not-so-constant constants somehow filter into the actual form of the equations being used? Has advances in astronomical observations, enabling us to peer back in time as far back as the CMB, given us any evidence to suggest that the laws of nature have evolved? If Feynman thinks that "It might turn out that they're not the same all the time and that there is a historical, evolutionary question." then this is surely a question worth asking.

NB/ To be clear: this is a question concerning purely physics, whether the equations therein change as the Universe ages, and whether there is any observational evidence for this. It is not intended as an oportunity for a philosophical discussion.

Answer 1

For many (most? all?) physicists, it's something like an axiom (or an article of faith, if you prefer) that the true laws don't change over time. If we find out that one of our laws does change, we start looking for a deeper law that subsumes the original and that can be taken to be universal in time and space.

A good example is Coulomb's Law, or more generally the laws of electromagnetism. In a sense, you could say that Coulomb's Law changed form over time: in the early Universe, when the energy density was high enough that electroweak symmetry was unbroken, Coulomb's Law wasn't true in any meaningful or measurable sense. If you thought that Coulomb's Law today was a fundamental law of nature, then you'd say that that law changed form over time: it didn't use to be true, but now it is. But of course that's not the way we usually think of it. Instead, we say that Coulomb's Law was never a truly correct fundamental law of nature; it was always just a special case of a more general law, valid in certain circumstances.

A more interesting example, along the same lines: Lots of theories of the early Universe involve the idea that the Universe in the past was in a "false vacuum" state, but then our patch of the Universe decayed to the "true vacuum" (or maybe just another false vacuum!). If you were around then, you'd definitely perceive that as a complete change in the laws of physics: the particles that existed, and the ways those particles interacted, were completely different before and after the decay. But we tend not to think of that as a change in the laws of physics, just as a change in the circumstances within which we apply the laws.

The point is just that when you try to ask a question about whether the fundamental laws change over time, you have to be careful to distinguish between actual physics questions and merely semantic questions. Whether the Universe went through one of these false vacuum decays is (to me, anyway) a very interesting physics question. I care much less whether we describe such a decay as a change in the laws of physics.

Answer 2

Not exactly in line with your question, but you might wanna have a look at the theory of Cosmological Natural Selection, which says that a new universe is spawned within each black hole with parameters inherited from its parent universe, only slightly mutated. In this sesne the laws of physics would be evolving as parameters change. Also, I just asked a question about it here :)