An international team of astronomers has looked at something very big
-- a distant galaxy -- to study the behavior of things very small --
atoms and molecules -- to gain vital clues about the fundamental nature
of our entire Universe. The team used the National Science Foundation's
Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT) to test whether the laws of
nature have changed over vast spans of cosmic time.
"The fundamental constants of physics are expected to remain fixed
across space and time; that's why they're called constants! Now,
however, new theoretical models for the basic structure of matter
indicate that they may change. We're testing these predictions." said
Nissim Kanekar, an astronomer at the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory (NRAO), in Socorro, New Mexico.
So far, the scientists' measurements show no change in the constants.
"We've put the most stringent limits yet on some changes in these
constants, but that's not the end of the story," said Christopher
Carilli, another NRAO astronomer.
http://www.nrao.edu/pr/2005/constants/
--Mike Jr.
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