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 gon na 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