On the Cosmic Variation of the Fine Structure Constant. Was the Universe Created at an Instant?

Abstract

Without veering off the shores of conventional physics and without making any exogenous addition on our part, but well within the mathematical and physical logic of the accepted domains and confines of classical Maxwellian electrodynamics - in a very simple way, we pristinely demonstrate that the variation of Fine Structure Constant (FSC) can be explained as a purely classical phenomenon without the need to resorting to exotic ideas as is the case in present day approaches to this problem. The need, spirited thrust and effort currently under-way to explain the variation of the FSC has been necessitated and triggered by observations of Quasar absorption lines from various ions of iron and magnesium by Professor John Webb and his collaborators who have interpreted their measurements as strongly pointing to a possible time and spacial variation of the FSC. Our interpretation of the variation of the FSC – if correct, then, we may need to rethink if not reconsider anew, our standard cosmological models, especially those cosmological models that are beholden to the now seemingly sacrosanct notion that all matter, energy and all of existence as we know it, was created at an instant. If the ideas propagated herein on the proposed mechanism behind the variation of the FSC, then, we argue that it should be possible to resolve the issue of the distances of Quasars i.e., whether or not Quasars are at their cosmological distances.