CREATION SCIENCE UPDATE ๐ซ
The Fine-Structure Constant: Evidence of Design in Nature
BY JONATHAN K. CORRADO, PH.D., P. E.ย
The job of physicists is to worry about numbers, but one number has perplexed physicists for more than a century. That number is 0.00729735256โapproximately 1/137. This is the fine-structure constant. It appears everywhere in the equations of quantum physics.
The fine-structure constant, designated by the Greek letter alpha (ฮฑ), is one of the many constants of nature that power our laws of physics, like the speed of light, the gravitational constant, or Planckโs constant. These constants can have different values depending upon which system of units are used to express them. For instance, the speed of light in vacuum is 186,000 miles per second, but it is also 300,000 kilometers per second. However, ฮฑ is a pure number, without any units.
Something bizarre and compelling about this number has led many of the founders of quantum mechanics to be obsessed with it. Paul Dirac, a theoretical physicist who is considered one of the founders of quantum mechanics and quantum electrodynamics, called it โthe most fundamental unsolved problem in physics.โ1 Even Richard Feynman, a 1965 Nobel Prize winner in physics for his contributions to the development of quantum electronics, pondered its mysteries his entire life. He remarked that โall good theoretical physicists put this number up on their wall and worry about it.โ2 What is it about this one number that makes it the worthy subject of the close attention of savants?
Additionally, the fine-structure constant sets the โstrengthโ of the electromagnetic force.3The greater the chance of interaction between the electron and electromagnetic fields, the more of an electromagnetic disturbance each electron will make. This is why the fine-structure constant appears in formulas that depend on electromagnetic force. The major question, however, remains: Why does ฮฑ take on the value that it does, and why does this specific combination of other fundamental constants come out to be exactly ฮฑ?
The fine-structure constant sets the size of atoms. A larger value means that electrons would be closer to nuclei, making them more tightly bound and less able to participate in chemical bonds. A smaller value would mean that electrons were less tightly bound, making atoms and molecules less stable. Its precise value could not be more important.
Physicists do not know why our universe ended up with this particular value for the fine-structure constant, or many of the other fundamental constants, for that matter. Many conventional physicists believe that these constants were set more or less randomly at the beginning of the universe. However, it would be surprising if they landed on just the right values to allow for the formation of life. Though a professing atheist, Richard Feynman poetically mused that โyou might say the โhand of Godโ wrote that number, and โwe donโt know how He pushed His pencil.โโ4
Because there is still so much unknown about this constant, physicists have merely hit the wavetops in the analysis of the fine-structure constant. However, given the uniqueness and complexity of this constant, itโs logical to conclude that our physical existence resulted from extraordinary design rather than chance or evolutionary causes. As science advances and untangles the mysteries of our universe, scientists continue to discover how incredibly complex yet tailored our universe is.
As Psalm 147:5 declares, โGreat is our Lord, and mighty in power; His understanding is infinite.โ
137 Is simply me , The Holy Trinity
The numbers are for Humanity
I deal strictly with energy