this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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Science Memes

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What is gravity? (mander.xyz)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

The strangeness of the Fine Structure Constant isn't it's value, it's that we don't know what it is.

Other constants have units that explain what they are doing. Like converting miles to meters we multiply by meters/miles. But this is just a number that is needed. That's so strange I can't think of another example.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Meh, there's pi, it has no units because it's the ratio of one distance to another...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I feel like this might be another example of OPs meme. Feyman called it a magic number we have no understanding of. It's one of the great mysteries of modern physics.