Cover Image: November 2001 Scientific American Magazine See Inside

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Has A Fundamental Constant Varied Over the Aeons?

By Graham P. Collins















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ancient light

ANCIENT LIGHT from quasars may harbor clues of altered physics. Image: NASA/CXC/SAO

If the result holds up, it will be one of the biggest discoveries in decades: billions of years ago the fundamental constant of nature that governs

electromagnetism was slightly weaker than it is today. That would seem to fly in the face of one of the most cherished principles in all of science, namely


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