When a Constant A'in't: "Confirmation that alpha is changing would have profound implications for physics."

When can a constant become a variable?  When you measure it in two different directions.

[Precise measurements on the light from distant quasars suggest that the value of the fine-structure constant may have changed over the history of the universe. If the quasar results are eventually confirmed, our concepts of space and time are sure to change our fundamental understanding of the universe.

The fine-structure constant, or alpha, is the coupling constant for the electromagnetic force. If alpha were just 4% bigger or smaller than it is, stars wouldn't be able to make carbon and oxygen, which would have made it impossible for life as we know it in our universe to exist.

A new study show{s} (sic) that alpha seems to have varied a tiny bit in different directions of the universe billions of years ago, being slightly smaller in the northern hemisphere and slightly larger in the southern hemisphere. One intriguing implication is that the fine-structure constant is continuously varying in space, and seems fine-tuned for life in our neighborhood of the universe.]  emphasis added, found at the Agonist.

Which explains why I can't adopt atheism 'cause lots in Universe my little tiny brain can't conceive, Steven Hawking notwithstanding.

Coupling constant from Wiki made my brain hurt.