Physical Constants

PhysicalConstants

The Physical Constants package pre-dates most of the curated data and, not being in the same format as the latter, is accessed differently.

In[284]:= << PhysicalConstants`

In[285]:= Names["PhysicalConstants`*"]

Out[285]= {"AccelerationDueToGravity", "AgeOfUniverse", "AvogadroConstant", \
"BohrRadius", "BoltzmannConstant", "ClassicalElectronRadius", \
"CosmicBackgroundTemperature", "DeuteronMagneticMoment", "DeuteronMass", \
"EarthMass", "EarthRadius", "ElectronCharge", "ElectronComptonWavelength", \
"ElectronGFactor", "ElectronMagneticMoment", "ElectronMass", \
"FaradayConstant", "FineStructureConstant", "GalacticUnit", \
"GravitationalConstant", "HubbleConstant", "IcePoint", "MagneticFluxQuantum", \
"MolarGasConstant", "MolarVolume", "MuonGFactor", "MuonMagneticMoment", \
"MuonMass", "NeutronComptonWavelength", "NeutronMagneticMoment", \
"NeutronMass", "PlanckConstant", "PlanckConstantReduced", "PlanckMass", \
"ProtonComptonWavelength", "ProtonMagneticMoment", "ProtonMass", \
"QuantizedHallConductance", "RydbergConstant", "SackurTetrodeConstant", \
"SolarConstant", "SolarLuminosity", "SolarRadius", \
"SolarSchwarzschildRadius", "SpeedOfLight", "SpeedOfSound", "StefanConstant", \
"ThomsonCrossSection", "VacuumPermeability", "VacuumPermittivity", \
"WeakMixingAngle"}

In[286]:= AccelerationDueToGravity

Out[286]= (196133 Meter)/(20000 Second^2)


This will generate a 3-column list of the constants and their values. Note the particular syntax of Partition, which is used to handle remnants at the end of a partitioned List. I explain this under Partition.

Table[{i, ToExpression@i}, {i, Names@"PhysicalConstants`*"}] //
  Partition[#, 3, 3, 1, {}] & // TableForm

And this will generate a list of the explanations of all constants. Note that the list is not in a form that can be manipulated, such as put into a more compact table, without some machinations of which I'm ignorant.

Information@# & /@ Names@"PhysicalConstants`*"

Finally, for this blog, here is a compact two-column table of the constants.


In[287]:= Thread[{Names["PhysicalConstants`*"],
   ToExpression /@ Names["PhysicalConstants`*"]}] // TableForm