What would our universe be like if Planck's constant were, say, 10 to100 times larger than it actually is

Question

What would be the effect on atomic & molecular structure, nuclear and particle physics & living things?

Not to forget your own personal happiness.

This question is more than I am able to handle myself, but maybe somebody can, or knows a reference.

Answer 1

The energy of electromagnetic waves is contained in indivisible quanta that have to be radiated or absorbed as a whole; the magnitude is proportional to frequency where the constant of proportionality is given by Planck's constant.

Since it is a constant for a proportion, as they both increase, I would think either nothing or things such as our concept of physics would have to increase also. But The more I think of my answer.

I ain't really sure now.

Answer 2

A story which should answer your question popped up on New Scientist Space the other week.... heres the link

http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg...

enjoy

Answer 3

I just answered this yesterday.

The question in and of itself is meaningless.  The value of a dimensionful constant is just a relic of the units we use to measure.  In natural units, h is just 2pi.  You can't change that.  Now if you were also stipulate that G, c, the strong and electroweak couplings, and all the particle masses stayed the same while you messed with h, you could start making meaningful statements--the impact is that the planck mass goes up by a factor of sqrt(h) so all the masses (measured in planck masses) go down, so quantum effects become more pronounced.  It's likely, though, that if we ever figure out how particles get their mass, it will go like sqrt(h), so you won't even be able to do that.

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The bohr radius goes up like h or h^2 depending on whether you hold the fundamental charge or the fine structure constant as you mess with h.  But the planck length goes up like sqrt(h).  So in natural units, the length goes up like sqrt(h).  Which makes sense since the bohr radius is inversely proportional to the electron's mass.  I'm basically substituting "all masses go down by a factor of sqrt(n)" for "h goes up by a factor of n".  The masses of the fundamental particles over the planck mass--those are dimensionless quantities so it does make sense to mess with them, so that's the simplest way to approach it.