Talk:137 (number)

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It was at one time thought to be exactly 1/137

New to me. Who did in fact think this? Do you have any reference? AFAIK α has always been e^2/hbar.c, so why would anyone expect this to be the reciprocal of an integer?

The physicist Arthur Eddington. See http://www.maa.org/mathland/mathtrek_5_21_01.html

No, Eddington's magic number was 136.
See http://mathworld.wolfram.com/EddingtonNumber.html
See http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Quotations/Eddington.html
So it would seem that MathTrek is misinformed.

Herbee 2004-02-07

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