Re: 137

From: Anders Sandberg (asa@nada.kth.se)
Date: Wed Nov 15 2000 - 03:37:38 MST


"Emlyn" <emlyn@one.net.au> writes:

> btw 2: What's this 137 stuff? I've always had a soft spot for 144 (goes back
> to getting a gold star at school for learning by 12-times tables), and I
> find 120 useful for it's divisibility when working on games, but 137, well,
> that's just plain useless)

It is the inverse fine structure constant: hbar c/e^2 = 1/alpha ~= 137
Although according to the NIST reference
(http://physics.nist.gov/cgi-bin/cuu/Value?alphinv|search_for=fine+structure)
it is currently measured to be 137.035 999 76 +- 0.000 000 50 - so it
is likely not an integer. Still, physicists like it, and I used it as
the code on my old suitcase.

See http://www.treasure-troves.com/physics/FineStructureConstant.html
for more.

-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Anders Sandberg                                      Towards Ascension!
asa@nada.kth.se                            http://www.nada.kth.se/~asa/
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