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Comment by Dylan16807

2 years ago

> It’s essentially asking why is the speed of light 299,798,452 m/s or the gravitational constant 6.67x10-11 Nm2/kg2

No, because those constants are entirely arbitrary.

The curiosity here is that you have multiple numbers lining up, only separated by small integers.

They are arbitrary in the sense that we could just change them and the universe wouldn't fl appart -- or are they derived from aonething deeper.

  • The obvious way in which those constants are arbitrary is that the meter is just a random length we compare other lengths to (and the gram is an arbitrary mass we use). So, the precise numbers are only meaningful as part of a system built on these units

    • "Since 2019 the metre has been defined as the length of the path travelled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299792458 of a second, where the second is defined by a hyperfine transition frequency of caesium."

      (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metre)

      I wouldn't call it totally random, no. It's really derived from somethings real in this universe.

      > So, the precise numbers are only meaningful as part of a system built on these units

      That doesn't sound particularly random. And in fact we agree here.

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