So the dent in the ground is a perfect fit for the puddle that formed in it?!
To even think that there are universes where we can’t stop after second order perturbation theory in the fine structure constant. Scary thought.
Reverse image search gave this pop-sci article from 2009:
https://arxiv.org/abs/0905.1283
Slightly different though. No grey part, though the legend argues that deutérium is unstable below the horizontal line, and “We are here” in smaller font
Source or additional explanation?
Has to do with the precise strength of the Strong Nuclear Force’s ability to form the atoms we know.
If it were even a little bit different, the entire universe would be a lot bit different.
are we that good at going from fundamental laws to what actually will happen in the macro world? e.g. we can’t even figure out why certain materials are superconductive at high temperatures.
so i doubt the counterfactual presented in this graph is accurate. we just know if the coupling constant is different the universe will look completely different, but we would have no idea if intelligent life could still arise.
Whats the gray at the bottom, though
Particles do not stick to each other. The universe is just a goo organized solely by gravity
Edit: The grey area is deuterium (H2) instability region
Nope, that’s the red strip on the left.
Though I was just guessing, I was pretty close to the truth. The grey area is deuterium (H2) instability region, which basically means that there are no to few molecules in the goo
Thoughts and prayers
This
Can those values actually go above 1 even in theory?
Well… The effecrive coupling constant changes with energy. A high energy experiment behaves differently than at lower energies. The coupling constant is above 1 for the strong force at low energies, but there is ‘asymptotic freedom’ which makes it below 1 at high energies. For EM it is always below 1. I would guess they reference a ‘bare’ value here.
The purpose of these graphs are not how they look in our universe though. Rather a common way of doing anthropic style arguments. Without measuring the value of the constants, from the graph we can know from just knowing there are stable carbon and non-relativistic atoms pretty exactly where the values of the constants must be. Similar arguments can be used to pinpoint the cosmological constant from the existance of galaxies.
