Twisting knobs on the Std. Muddle

[marcus]

this is an example of a kind of article I'd like to read more of
it is by robert cahn (at LBL Berkeley?)
and is called

"Eighteen Parameters of the Standard Model in Your Everyday Life"

the way to get it is to go to Carrol's blog, he has it for download in PS
and then you have to convert to PDF
http://preposterousuniverse.blogspo...erousuniverse_archive.html#110297937006874782

DOES ANYONE KNOW OF SOMETHING ELSE LIKE THIS ONLINE?
maybe even better or more convenient?

It tries to bring home how the Std Mdl is really about everyday life
because if some of the parameters were changed then there would
be different chemical elements, or maybe no chemical elements at all,
and maybe stars wouldn't be able to burn, or would burn too fast

and the parameters are some finite set of pure dimensionless numbers, because they are ratios (ultimately to universal quantities like the Planck quantities)

so there are these 18 or 26 or some number of pure absolute numbers which are so important in everyday life

but I don't know of any online article that makes this point in a simple
non-goofy way and provides a decent level of detail

maybe this is the best there is-----anybody have an alternative link?

 

[nightcleaner]

I havn't seen the paper but it sounds like the kind of work I have read in "Just Six Numbers" by Martin Rees, and "The Constants of Nature" byJohn D. Barrow. These are books Which can be found in inexpensive printings at your local big box book store.

nc

 

[marcus]

thanks NC,
I have seen similarly titled pieces in hardcopy too. there was an excellent discussion in the Scientific American some time back about the effects that slight variation in some fundamental constants would have on everyday life.
But I tried to remember and realized I couldn't think of when or by whom!

Maybe we should collect some hardcopy titles, like the ones you offer here, and list them too, along with online sources.

what I especially want, though, is more online material.
online material gives people at a forum something they can all have
access to, and can discuss and reference.

I suspect there is something more out there besides this piece by Robert Cahn. still hope to hear of it.

 

[marcus]

One thing Robert Cahn does is imagine for us what would happen if the mass gap between the electron and the muon
were gradually narrowed

what changes would start happening in our world

another thing he touches on is what the world would be like if the
mass of the top quark were an order of magnitude less than it actually is.

----------------

maybe this gives an idea. he is not talking merely about varying a few familiar constants--------I guess a fair number of people have described the radically different world one would get if alpha (fine structure const) were varied by a couple of percent!

talking about varying alpha, or the proton mass, or the cosmological constant, is a good start but it just scratches the surface

Robert Cahn although he talks about a few different ones, also only whets the appetite

a lot more could be written on this, and I hope it has and is available online!

 

[nightcleaner]

It might be useful for people interested in this area to have a look at the Wikipedia work of Robert Bristow-Johnson and others on natural (Planck) units, which may be easier to manipulate. Have a look at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_units

I am doing some original work which I would be happy to share, taking the idea of natural units and applying dimensional analysis from the point of view of strong space-time equivalence. Velocity reduces to a dimensionless number, and there is an interesting geometric relationship to be seen between voltage, resistance, and the inverse of current. Since I have no career, and am generally a foolish advocate of altruism and cooperation over competition, I give this to the community freely, if anyone is interested.

I just hope I don't get hit by a truck. It would be nice if one of the big, powerful academic machinery drivers would stoop down to give me a lift, but that is too much for a nightcleaner guy to expect, I guess. Oh well. Onward and upward.

nc

 

[wolram]

This paper is along similar lines, no math, just why things
are as they are, "not".
http://arxiv.org/pdf/hep-th/0407213