What is the meaning of life? Even the best of us couldn't hope to answer that question in a Universe Today article. But there are those who would try to "constrain" it, at least in terms of physics. A ...

A crucial number that rules the universe goes big in a strange quantum material. The fine-structure constant is about 10 times its normal value in a type of material called quantum spin ice, ...

Over the years, many physicists have wondered whether the fundamental constants of nature might have been different when the universe was younger. If so, the evidence ought to be out there in the ...

Even on a black hole’s turf, an essential constant of nature holds steady. According to standard physics, the fine-structure constant, which governs interactions of electrically charged particles, is ...

One of the most exciting prospects in physics has been discovering that fundamental constants are not actually constant at all. When I first started writing, physicists and astronomers were just ...

There’s no reason to think that the fundamental constants have always had the value we measure today. And there’s no reason to think they’re changing either. We simply don’t know one way or the other, ...

Billions of years ago the strength of the electromagnetic interaction was different at opposite ends of universe. That’s the surprising conclusion of a group of physicists in Australia, who have ...

One of the most dissatisfying aspects of modern physics is the fundamental constants. It’s not that they are constant that bothers anyone, it is their very existence that is offensive to ...

In this week’s “Ask a Physicist,” we deal with a crazy and exciting question. Is the Fine Structure Constant really a constant? Maybe. Okay, probably. I have a secret to tell you. More than 90% of the ...

Forbes contributors publish independent expert analyses and insights. I write about physics, science, academia, and pop culture. One promising avenue for this sort of study is a search for changes in ...