Fine Structure Constant | 20 x 16 x 1.5 in | Acrylic on Canvas

Fine Structure Constant, 137 - Poem Written by Magdalena Munro | November 2018

Shooting stars and comets
are the stuff of infancy –

Romanticized as couplets
meld into one another whilst
sipping hot apple cider on
frigid nights when bones and
ligands chatter

wondering upward into
the puzzling skyshow.

Meteors burn and
matchstick solar systems
spill gases streaking through
a black spangled canvas.

But the rabbit from
your uncle's tophat?

The tour de force
that answers the
questions poets
and philosophers
have asked forever

slips beyond the
simplicity of our
casual minds.

Fundamentally
constant with
a value nearly
equaling 1/137

denoted by the
Greek letter alpha.

α.

Alpha determines
how quickly excited
atoms emit photons

affects the details of
light emitted by atoms

There are patterns
you view with a coy
poetic name called
fine structure.

It is seen in sunlight
and the light coming
from stars.

A dimensionless
constant, a law
of nature.

The answer to

all your questions.