🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <6NOV199212364099@csa1.lbl.gov> sichase@csa1.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE) writes:

> The speed of light is what it is for *some* reason, or it would have a
> different value!  (I know I'll get flamed for this one.)  I expect that
> this reason will ultimately be accessible to us.

I agree that the speed of light is what it is for some reason, but I
don't think that the reason is particularly interesting or
fundamental.

The speed of light is a dimensional quantity, so it has the value that
it does only because we happen to use a certain set of units; I think,
then, that a better way to phrase the question is: why do we choose to
measure distances in centimeters and times in seconds?  

That's not a trivial question, of course; centimeters and seconds (or
meters and minutes, or whatever) are a natural scale for humans.  So
the question is: what is it about atomic physics, chemistry, and
biology, that makes this scale natural for us?  I think we know enough
about these fields so that we do at least have a partial answer to
that question.

There even is, actually, one particle-physics way of phrasing this
question that makes it somewhat more interesting: the "natural" units
for length and time are the Plank length and the Plank time.  So why
is it that the physics that we see around us is on scales so very
different?  This, of course, is just the old hierarchy problem
reappearing again: why is it that the QCD scale and the electroweak
scale are so much smaller than the Plank scale?
--
Matthew Austern                   Just keep yelling until you attract a
(510) 644-2618                    crowd, then a constituency, a movement, a
austern@lbl.bitnet                faction, an army!  If you don't have any
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