THE SIGNIFICANCE OF NUMERICAL COINCIDENCES IN NATURE Part I The Role of Fundamental Microphysical Parameters in Cosmogony

Line by line Transcript (preserving the original page numbering) of the stencilled Preprint issued in 1967. Abstract This is the first part of a survey whose ultimate purpose is to clarify the significance of the famous coincidence between the Hubble age of the universe and a certain combination of microphysical parameters. In this part the way is prepared by a discussion of the manner in which familiar local phenomena depend qualitatively, and in order of magnitude, quantitatively on the fundamental parameters of microphysics. In order to keep the account concise while remaining self contained, only the barest essentials of the standard nuclear physical and astrophysical calculations involved are given. Only six of the fundamental parameters play a dominant part, namely the coupling constants of the strong, electromagnetic, and gravitational forces, and the mass ratios of the proton, neutron, electron and π-meson. Attention is drawn to the important consequences of three coincidental relationships between these parameters. It is shown that most of the principle limiting masses of astrophysics arise (in fundamental units) simply as the reciprocal of the gravitational fine structure constant, with relatively small adjustment factors. The dividing point between red dwarf and blue giant stars turns out to be an exception: this division occurs within the range of the main sequence stars only as a consequence of the rather exotic coincidence that the ninth power of the electromagnetic fine structure constant is roughly equal to the square root of the gravitational fine structure constant.