“ Highly complex numbers like the Comma of Pythagoras, Pi and Phi (sometimes called the Golden Proportion), are known as irrational numbers. They lie deep in the structure of the physical universe, and… Jonathan Black
“ Take this neat little equation here. It tells me all the ways an electron can make itself comfortable in or around an atom. That's the logic of it. The poetry of it is that the equation tells me how s… Richard Feynman
“ Some astrophysicists have convinced themselves that the fifth significant figure of the fine structure constant has changed over the past ten billion years. Sheldon L. Glashow
“ There are considerable mysteries surrounding the strange values that Nature's actual particles have for their mass and charge. For example, there is the unexplained 'fine structure constant' ... gover… Roger Penrose
“ The significance of [the fine-structure constant] goes far beyond atomic physics, however. It is the smallness of 1/137 compared to unity that enables us to treat the coupling between the electromagne… Paul Davies
“ We have one real candidate for changing the rules; this is string theory. In string theory the one-dimensional trajectory of a particle in spacetime is replaced by a two-dimensional orbit of a string.… Edward Witten
“ Alpha, known as the fine-structure constant, characterizes the interactions between matter and light. It has been very accurately measured in the laboratory. It is indeed the most precisely measured o… Jean-Philippe Uzan
“ The fine structure constant is undoubtedly the most fundamental pure (dimensionless) number in all of physics. It relates the basic constants of electromagnetism (the charge of the electron), relativi… David J. Griffiths
“ We have found that the values of the constants of nature have not been fine-tuned for life by accident, but that these values are constrained by and logically follow from the fundamental space-time or… Carl Johan Calleman
“ The theoretical determination of the fine structure constant is certainly the most important of the unsolved problems of modern physics. We believe that any regression to the ideas of classical physic… Wolfgang Pauli
“ Through Jung [Pauli] became very interested in various kinds of mysticism, including Jewish mysticism. This led Pauli to develop a friendship with Gershom Scholem, the world's greatest authority in th… Victor F. Weisskopf
“ QED [quantum electrodynamics] reduces ... "all of chemistry and most of physics," to one basic interaction, the fundamental coupling of a photon to electric charge. The strength of this coupling remai… Frank Wilczek
“ … there are no arbitrary constants ... nature is so constituted that it is possible logically to lay down such strongly determined laws that within these laws only rationally determined constants occu… Albert Einstein
“ It is shown that the golden ratio plays a prominent role in the dimensions of all objects which exhibit five-fold symmetry. It is also showed that among the irrational numbers, the golden ratio is the… Richard A. Dunlap
“ One hundred thirty-seven is the inverse of something called the fine-structure constant. ...The most remarkable thing about this remarkable number is that it is dimension-free. ...Werner Heisenberg on… Leon M. Lederman
“ Let us begin with the fine-structure constant. ... The fine-structure constant is really the ratio of two natural units or atoms of action. ... We obtain action when we multiply energy by time. ... We… Arthur Stanley Eddington
“ The bridge between the electron and the other elementary particles is provided by the fine structure constant, a ~ 1/137, as manifested in the factor-of-137 spacings between the classical electron rad… Malcolm H. Mac Gregor
“ I introduce the subject of fine structure with a mini-calendar of events. ...Winter 1914-15. Sommerfeld computes relativistic orbits for hydrogen-like atoms. Pashcen, aware of these studies, carefully… Abraham Pais
“ To calculate 'the' fine structure constant, 1/137, we would need a realistic model of just about everything, and this we do not have. In this talk I want to return to the old question of what it is th… Steven Weinberg
“ True, the Standard Model does explain a very great deal. Nevertheless it is not yet a proper theory, principally because it does not satisfy the physicists naive faith in elegance and simplicity. It i… Sheldon L. Glashow
