#phycis — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #phycis, aggregated by home.social.
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The Number on the Wall: Why Physicists Call 137 Magic
I came to 137 the way most people come to it, by hearing it called a magic number and wanting to know whether the word was earned. My instinct with a claim like that is suspicion, because a working life spent around language and persuasion teaches you how easily a large word gets draped over a small thing. This time the suspicion did not survive the facts. The number turned out to be real in a way I had not expected, and the people most gripped by it have been some of the hardest-headed physicists who ever lived. […]https://bolesblogs.com/2026/06/03/the-number-on-the-wall-why-physicists-call-137-magic/
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The Number on the Wall: Why Physicists Call 137 Magic
I came to 137 the way most people come to it, by hearing it called a magic number and wanting to know whether the word was earned. My instinct with a claim like that is suspicion, because a working life spent around language and persuasion teaches you how easily a large word gets draped over a small thing. This time the suspicion did not survive the facts. The number turned out to be real in a way I had not expected, and the people most gripped by it have been some of the hardest-headed physicists who ever lived. […]https://bolesblogs.com/2026/06/03/the-number-on-the-wall-why-physicists-call-137-magic/