Dirac's Interpretation of The Large Number Coincidences
The Weyl and Eddington ratios above can be rephrased in a variety of ways, as for instance in the context of time:
where t is the age of the universe, is the speed of light and re is the classical electron radius. Hence, in units where c=1 and re = 1, the age of the Universe is about 1040 units of time. This is the same order of magnitude as the ratio of the electrical to the gravitational forces between a proton and an electron:
Hence, interpreting the charge of the electron, the mass / of the proton/electron, and the permittivity factor in atomic units (equal to 1), the value of the gravitational constant is approximately 10−40. Dirac interpreted this to mean that varies with time as, and thereby pointed to a cosmology that seems 'designer-made' for a theory of quantum gravity. According to general relativity, however, G is constant, otherwise the law of conserved energy is violated. Dirac met this difficulty by introducing into the Einstein field equations a gauge function β that describes the structure of spacetime in terms of a ratio of gravitational and electromagnetic units. He also provided alternative scenarios for the continuous creation of matter, one of the other significant issues in LNH:
- 'additive' creation (new matter is created uniformly throughout space) and
- 'multiplicative' creation (new matter is created where there are already concentrations of mass).
Read more about this topic: Dirac Large Numbers Hypothesis
Famous quotes containing the words large, number and/or coincidences:
“The future of humanity is uncertain, even in the most prosperous countries, and the quality of life deteriorates; and yet I believe that what is being discovered about the infinitely large and infinitely small is sufficient to absolve this end of the century and millennium. What a very few are acquiring in knowledge of the physical world will perhaps cause this period not to be judged as a pure return of barbarism.”
—Primo Levi (1919–1987)
“Can it be, that the Greek grammarians invented their dual number for the particular benefit of twins?”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)
“Only ambition is fired by the coincidences of success and easy accomplishment but nothing is quite as splendidly uplifting to the heart as the defeat of a human being who battles against the invincible superiority of fate. This is always the most grandiose of all tragedies, one sometimes created by a dramatist but created thousands of times by life.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)