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Strange Universe With Bob Berman
Strange Universe

What's happening with Alpha?

By Bob Berman
Published November 30, 2025 at 5:27 PM EST
1 of 1  — su 11-30 nasa.jpg
NASA

The universe is shaped by four fundamental forces, including gravity and electromagnetism. The latter’s strength is described by the dimensionless constant alpha (about 0.008), a value long puzzling to scientists such as Wolfgang Pauli. In 2010, astrophysicists analyzing quasar light found that alpha appeared slightly larger in one direction of the sky and smaller in the opposite, suggesting this supposedly unchanging constant might vary across the cosmos. Tune in to hear how such a directional shift would challenge Einstein’s relativity, hint at an even larger — possibly infinite — universe with fundamentally different cosmic “neighborhoods,” and suggest that life exists here partly because our region of the universe is unusually suited to it.

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