Scientists Find the “Magic Number” That Links Forces of the Universe Scientists Find the “Magic Number” That Links Forces of the Universe
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Sławomir Mrożek, Diogenes Verlag AG – drawing from the archives (no. 1123/1966)
Science

Scientists Find the “Magic Number” That Links Forces of the Universe

Paul Ratner
Reading
time 2 minutes

Researchers dramatically improve the accuracy of a number that connects fundamental forces.

Physicists determined with tremendous accuracy the value of what’s been called “a magic number” and considered one of the greatest mysteries in physics by famed scientists like Richard Feynman. The fine-structure constant (denoted by the Greek α for “alpha”) shows the strength of the elect

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Ten Bulls Ten Bulls
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Drawing by Daniel de Latour
Fiction

Ten Bulls

Kuòān Shīyuăn

Here is an old tale that is part of the Zen tradition. At first, it only consisted of drawings (five, six, and eventually ten) and poems, which we present you with below. Their author, a Chinese monk, lived in the twelfth century and was called Kuòān Shīyuǎn. The parable became extremely popular in Japan, from where it reached the West in the twentieth century.

As far as the content is concerned, we can traditionally interpret the man heading out to search for the bull as embarking on a quest to look for one’s true nature. But there is nothing wrong with understanding the symbolism of the bull in a different way!

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