Scott, if that's you, you need to sign your comments.  Duff doesn't use any string theory, not one spit, to argue his point.  Scott, i think that is evidence that you still just don't get it.  this has nothing to do with string theory.  string theory is non-sequitur.  i hardly understand string theory (really, just the pop stuff Brian Greene puts on Nova), but i fully understand the argument that, in reality, the only physical quantities that we measure, that we perceive, that make any difference to anything that involves us as human beings (or E.T. beings, for that matter) are dimensionless quantities.  when something changes that affects us, ultimately it's a dimensionless measure, usually the ratio of like dimensioned quantities.  we always measure a dimensionful quantity against another like dimensioned quantity.

if  changed (let's say got bigger), conceptually, that would have meaning, the electromagnetic force (relative to the other fundamental interactions) would have changed in proportion (gotten a little bigger).  then it would appear that the charge of an electron has gotten a little bigger (but it might not have) or that Planck's constant has gotten a little smaller (but it might not have) or that the speed of light has gotten a little smaller (that's the choice you and authors such as Moffat made) or even (if we're gonna say that  might have changed) that the permittivity of free space has changed (like ,  is defined in many measurement systems, such as SI or cgs).  (i doubt anyone will argue that it's  or  that has changed.)  heck, someday soon (i would expect within a decade)  will be defined (because of a redefinition of the kilogram).  if they do that, then a change in  gets blamed on a change of , which still seems most natural to me, but that's my opinion.  even so,. if they did that to  and  was measured to have changed, i would not argue that all of the electrons and protons and positrons in the universe have somehow transferred charge.  i would say that they appear to have a different charge since their strength of their interaction has changed (which is fundamentally all a change in  can mean).  that is all we would know or could ever know.  to blame any conceptual change of  on a change of any of the dimensionful ingredients to it, is silly.  16:04, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)