[libre-riscv-dev] [OT] fine structure constant

[Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton]

On Tue, Jul 9, 2019 at 1:20 PM Hendrik Boom <hendrik at topoi.pooq.com> wrote:

> On Tue, Jul 09, 2019 at 12:29:22PM +0100, Luke Kenneth Casson Leighton wrote:
> > On Tuesday, July 9, 2019, Jacob Lifshay <programmerjake at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > found one of the bugs causing simulation to fail:
> > > https://github.com/m-labs/nmigen/issues/141
> >
> >
> > Ah excellent.
> >
> > Also i just remembered where I know bigfloat from, The de Vries formula for
> > the fine structure constant.
> > http://lkcl.net/reports/fine_structure_constant/
>
> Cool.  I didn't know there was a formula for the fine structure constant.
> Now I find myself wondering if there is any theoretica justification for
> that formula, or whether de Vries just kept adjusting the formula unti
> it came out approoximately correct.

 it's not *approximately* correct, it's *exactly* correct.  as in:
every time a new electron magnetic moment experiment comes out (with
associated computation for alpha), the formula remains accurate.

 it's also extremely elegant: it's similar in nature to euler's
formula (except it's recursive / iterative).

 also, i spoke to a mathematician friend of mine and he said, "hm,
that's interesting: although it's similar to the Maclaurin Series,
there *is* no known formula like this iterative series in the whole of
mathematical science.  ever".

 every other formula for alpha is... well... total bollocks, really.
even the one that is pure guess-work and yet "published as truth!!!!"
yes!!! we ran a supercomputer for months, and it printed out 100 pages
of A4 "sums" [*sotto voice*: some of those had magic constants that we
um had to like... y'know... guess?]

 ... yyyeah :)

> Especially because the Wikipedia article
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fine-structure_constant
> cites experimental evidence that the find structure constant has changed
> over the past ten billion years or so.

 mmm... riiiight.

> Of course the evidence could be wrong.

 or wikipedia, fount of all knowledge....

l.