English

Surprises in numerical expressions of physical constants

Popular Physics 2016-03-02 v1

Abstract

In science, as in life, `surprises' can be adequately appreciated only in the presence of a null model, what we expect a priori. In physics, theories sometimes express the values of dimensionless physical constants as combinations of mathematical constants like pi or e. The inverse problem also arises, whereby the measured value of a physical constant admits a `surprisingly' simple approximation in terms of well-known mathematical constants. Can we estimate the probability for this to be a mere coincidence, rather than an inkling of some theory? We answer the question in the most naive form.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1603.00299,
  title  = {Surprises in numerical expressions of physical constants},
  author = {Ariel Amir and Mikhail Lemeshko and Tadashi Tokieda},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1603.00299},
  year   = {2016}
}

Comments

accepted to the American Mathematical Monthly