[ExI] A preferred direction to the universe?

[John Clark]

The universe may have a preferred direction. A new study has found a
spatial variation in the Fine Structure Constant (a pure number
approximately equal to 1/137) with a 3.9 sigma level of confidence, that
means there is a 0.8% chance it's just a statistical fluke. It's not good
enough to claim a discovery, that requires 5 sigma or only 0.023% chance of
it being bogus, but it's good enough to be interesting. The detected
variation has a dipole structure, the laws of physics that govern
electromagnetism seem to get stronger in one direction, and the further we
look the stronger it gets, and it gets weaker when we look in the oposite
direction, with no change in the perpendicular direction. In other words it
has a dipole shape.

If this turns out to be true then Noether's theorem tells us that the Law
Of conservation Of Angular Momentum is only approximately true.

Four direct measurements of the fine-structure constant 13 billion years ago
<https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/17/eaay9672>

This new optical work is consistent with a different study from a few weeks
ago that used  X rays instead of optical light, they also found a variation
and along the same axis.

Rethinking cosmology: Universe expansion may not be uniform
<https://phys.org/news/2020-04-basic-assumption-universe.html>

John K Clark
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