137, Where Are You?

Source: The God Particle by Leon Lederman with Dick Teresi

In his book, which is subtitled "If the Universe is the answer, what is the question?" Leon Lederman wrote

Physicists have agonized over 137 for the past fifty years. Werner Heisenberg once proclaimed that all the quandries of quantum mechanics would shrivel up when 137 was finally explained. I tell my undergraduate students that if they are ever in trouble in a major city anywhere in the world they should write "137" on a sign and hold it up on a busy street corner. Eventually a physicist will see that they're distressed and come to their assistance. (No one to my knowledge has ever tried this, but it should work.)

I, in the spirit of Odysseuse, decided to accept Dr. Lederman's implied challenge. It was either curiosity or benign mischief that led to the following attempt. This city is not known for its clusters of physicists on street corners, so I decided to begin at our Unitarian Church whose membership includes many professionals, some of whom are scientists.

All of us have permanent nametags mounted on a bulletin board to be worn during the service and replaced afterwards. I took mine home and added a few things: a computer generated red rose, my name in an Old English script, plus a gold Hallmark circle on which I printed in large black letters 137.

I also changed my behavior. Instead of going in and sitting quietly waiting for the service to begin, I made the rounds of all the little groups chatting in the foyer before the service. I volunteered to be an usher, a greeter, handed out hymnbooks, joined the Coffee Hour folks after the service. My name tag and I were the Katie Couric of the Unitarians. But no one came to my rescue or commented on my nametag. This went on for several weeks.

Finally I asked the secretary to give me the name or names of physicists in our congregation. The best she could do was to come up with the name of a Professor of Physics at one of our colleges. I found an excuse to have a talk with him. My nametag fairly screamed at him. He took no notice.

What next? I wrote a letter to Leon Lederman in care of his publisher, relating the circumstances and outcome of my experiment just as I have written them to you. I never heard from him.

The book is touted as the funniest book about physics ever written, and I will attest to that. It's written in plain English, no complicated formulae. It is a comprehensive history of physics from Democritus through Einstein and beyond. Nothing in it is obsolete even though the publishing date is 1994. The God Particle of the title is the Higgs boson, which is known to exist but has not yet been discovered. The top quark had not yet been found in 1994 but was discovered shortly afterward.
Read it, enjoy it, and you will be able to say, "Oh yes, I know all about 137 - that it's really 1/137!"