# Tag Info

## Hot answers tagged physical-constants

77

Short answer: nobody knows, but the Planck length is more numerology than physics at this point Long answer: Suppose you are a theoretical physicist. Your work doesn't involve units, just math--you never use the fact that $c = 3 \times 10^8 m/s$, but you probably have $c$ pop up in a few different places. Since you never work with actual physical ...

62

first of all, the question you are asking is very important and you may master it completely. Dimensionful constants are those that have units - like $c, \hbar, G$, or even $k_{\rm Boltzmann}$ or $\epsilon_0$ in SI. The units - such as meter; kilogram; second; Ampere; kelvin - have been chosen partially arbitrarily. They're results of random cultural ...

51

The second and the speed of light are precisely defined, and the metre is then specified as a function of $c$ and the second. So when you experimentally measure the speed of light you are effectively measuring the length of the metre i.e. the experimental error is the error in the measurement of the metre not the error in the speed of light or the second. ...

46

Something I posted on reddit answers this question quite well, I think: "Rational" and "irrational" are properties of numbers. Quantities with units aren't numbers, so they're neither rational nor irrational. A quantity with units is the product of a number and something else (the unit) that isn't a number. By choosing the unit you use to express a ...

42

To formalize dushya's comment as an answer: Since the kilogram is an arbitrary, man-made unit, the actual numerical value of the proton mass in kilograms is meaningless (i.e. it's as good as its value in pounds, ounces, stones, solar masses, $\textrm{MT}/c^2$, etc.). The true fundamental constants of nature are dimensionless: they have the same value in ...

28

The view of most physicists is that asking "How can it be that the speed of light is constant?" is similar to asking "How can it be that things don't always go in the direction of the force on them?" or "How can it be that quantum-mechanical predictions involve probability?" The usual answer is that these things simply are. There is no deeper, more ...

27

None of the above. Though there are many speculations about the significance of the Planck length, none is proven in any currently accepted theory. It is expected, though, that quantum gravity effects become definitely non-neglegible at the energy/distance scale set by the Planck length, so it provides a heuristic scale at which we should not expect our ...

26

Special Relativity is based on the invariance of a quantity called the proper time, $\tau$, which is the time measured by a freely moving (i.e. not accelerated) observer. The proper time is defined by: $$c^2d\tau^2 = c^2dt^2 - dx^2 - dy^2 - dz^2$$ This is similar to Pythagoras' theorem as learned by generations of schoolchildren, except that it includes ...

21

Nothing. From Nature's perspective speed of light is entirely artificial number. Imagine that you've discovered an alien culture that measured horizontal length $\ell$ and height $h$ in different units. They live on a planet with very strong gravitational force, and for them it is very difficult to rotate stuff in vertical plane. Such kind of rotations are ...

20

Yes, Avogadro's constant is a redundant artifact from the era in the history of chemistry in which people didn't know how many atoms there were in a macroscopic amount of a material and it is indeed legitimate to set Avogadro's constant equal to one and abandon the awkward obsolete unit "mole" along the way. This $N_A=1$ is equivalent to $$1\,\,{\rm mole} = ... 20 The expression (\hbar G/c^3)^{1/2} is the unique product of powers of \hbar, G,c, three most universal dimensionful constants, that has the unit of length. Because the constants \hbar, G,c describe the fundamental processes of quantum mechanics, gravity, and special relativity, respectively, the length scale obtained in this way expresses the typical ... 19 As far as we can tell, the local speed of light in vacuum is indeed constant. Photons don't slow down or speed up as they fall into or rise out of a gravity well. However, just as a massive object's kinetic energy changes as the object falls into or rises out of a gravity well, photons also gain or lose energy. In the case of photons, this energy change ... 17 To repeat Wikipedia: The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact because the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time. In other words, it's exact ... 16 There was a proposal in 2006 trying to define NA as an exact number[1,2]:$$ N_A^* = 84\;446\;888^3 = 6.022\;141\;410\;704\;090\;840\;990\;72 \times 10^{23} $$the problem? This value is incorrect, as the currently most accurate result is[3]$$ N_A = 6.022\;140\;84(18) \times 10^{23} $$i.e. N_A^* is now 3 s.d. away from N_A. As I have commented, if ... 16 Tom, would you have asked the question "why is the speed of light 1 ls/s" if we happened to measure distance in lightseconds and time in seconds? The true answer to your question is: the speed of light is 1 if you measure distance and duration in compatible units, and it is whatever your system of units defines it to be if you adopt units that are more ... 16 No, the value 9.8\frac{\mathrm{m}}{\mathrm{s}^2} is an approximation that is only valid at or near the Earth's surface. You can go a few miles up or down and it'll still be good enough, but once you get any significant distance away from the surface of Earth, you would need to use a different value for gravitational acceleration. You can calculate the ... 15 To expand a little on David's point assume we move from the nominal "surface" where g is 9.8\text{ m}/\text{s}^2 to another point at radius r + \Delta r. How much does the acceleration of gravity change?$$ g = \frac{GM}{(r+\Delta r)^2} = \frac{GM}{r^2(1 + \Delta r/r)^2} $$and as long as \Delta r is small compared to r we can reasonably ... 15 G is just a constant of proportionality to get the units right (so that when m_1 and m_2 are in kilograms and r is in meters you get a force in Newtons rather than wingdingalings or something really weird). Indeed cosmologists like to work in a system of units where G = c = 1 \text{ (dimensionless)}, and particle physicists like to work in units ... 15 One should separate the question into two parts, the first of which is philosophical, and the second physics. The philosophical question is resolved by understanding that there are "constants" which are just those that set the system of units, and these are constant for the simple reason that they define our conventional units. The unit-defining constants ... 15 The infinitesimal length interval between two events in spacetime ds is defined by$$ds^2=c^2 dt^2 - dx^2 - dy^2 - dz^2$$The creature is dimensionally consistent, because time is multiplied with a speed. You can think of (t,x,y,z) as the four coordinates of spacetime (x^0,x^1,x^2,x^3) and c appears naturally in the equations. However, the usual ... 14 This does allow you to make a prediction--- the significance of the match tells you approximately the number of attempts you have made to get such a coincidence. The ratio of the mass of a proton to a mass of a steel cylinder in Paris was determined by the psychology of some French revolutionaries. But from the accuracy you get, one can be 99.99% sure that ... 13 You've seen the speed of light quoted as roughly 3*10^8\, \text{m/s}, so the speed of light is very fast compared to one meter and one second. This is roughly a human walking speed, so your question could be interpreted as asking why light is few hundred million times faster than a walking speed. The speed people walk is rather anthropocentric, though. ... 13 Your guess is correct. After electroweak symmetry breaking, the coupling constant for the residual U(1)_\textrm{EM} gauge group can be written as a function of the couplings of the broken SU(2)_L \times U(1)_\textrm{Y} gauge groups:$$ \alpha = \frac{1}{4\pi}\frac{g^2 g\prime^2}{g^2+g\prime^2} = \frac{e^2}{4\pi} $$These couplings, however, are running ... 13 It's a side effect of the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics. You are in good company thinking it is a little strange. Many quantities in physics can be related to each other by a few lines of algebra. These tend to be the models that we think of as "pretty." Terms manipulated by pure algebra tend to pick up integer factors, or factors that are ... 13 G is not exactly larger than h by a factor of 10^{23} in SI units, as you are probably aware (just making sure). There is also no expected numerical relationship between the two that has a physical interpretation. You have to understand that these constants are mostly just due to our (to some extent) arbitrary choices of units. These are, of course, ... 13 You can't calculate the numerical value of Newton's constant from the first principle because it is a dimensionful constant – it has units – so the numerical value depends on the magnitude of the units. And because e.g. the kilogram is defined as the mass of a platinum prototype hosted by a French chateau (the kilogram has the "least objective" definition so ... 12 Since in the limit of weak gravitational fields, Newtonian gravitation should be recovered, it is not surprising that the constant G appears also in Einstein's equations. Using only the tools of differential geometry we can only determine Einstein's field equations up to an unknown constant \kappa:$$G_{\mu\nu} = \kappa T_{\mu\nu}.$$That this equation ... 12 The problem is that you want your unit definitions to be realizable - so specifying "1 mol is long number molecules, 1 gram is 1/12 of the mass of one mol of C_{12}" is nice for your thought process, but as long as there is no practical way to count molecules at such scales to a precision of better than 10^{-9} (which I think is the precision of the ... 11 Using fundamental physical constants, try to construct an expression which has a length unit. So using dimensional analysis, we have: G = m^3 \cdot kg^{-1} \cdot s^{-2} c = m \cdot s^{-1} and \hbar = J \cdot s = kg \cdot m^2 \cdot s^{-1}. Than we are to construct length l = m in the following way:$$l = G^a c^b \hbar^d = m^{3a + b+d} \cdot ...

11

The particular value of $c$ depends on how long a meter is and how long one second is. If meters were longer, for example, the speed of light would be a smaller number, even though light would still be as fast. Viewed this way, physical measurements are ratios. In this case, it's a ratio of the speed of light to a rather arbitrary speed - one meter per ...

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