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Constants Drift Budget Service

A subscription service tracking if the basic laws of physics have changed over the history of the universe.

A subscription report and API that consolidates early-universe and present-day measurements into a single, provenance-tracked budget of how stable fundamental constants like the fine-structure constant and electron mass are across 13.8 billion years.

Physics and AstronomyCosmology and Gravitation Theories
Cosmology and Gravitation TheoriesMetrology and precision time/frequency instrumentation

Concept

A periodically updated report plus queryable API, "Constants Drift Budget," that consolidates every experimental bound on the variation of fundamental constants across cosmic time into one provenance-tracked curve per constant. For each constant (fine-structure constant α, electron mass, etc.) it layers: recombination-era bounds from CMB anisotropy, nucleosynthesis-era bounds from primordial abundances, astrophysical bounds (quasar absorption spectra, natural reactors), and present-day laboratory bounds from atomic-clock comparisons — each tagged with its epoch, uncertainty, and source dataset. Metrology institutes, clock laboratories, and precision-instrument makers use it to state, with citations, how stable the constants underpinning the SI system of units are over the full history of the universe.

Why now

ACT DR6 [0] just delivered new recombination-era anchors: α_EM/α_EM,0 = 1.0043 ± 0.0017 and m_e/m_e,0 = 1.0063 ± 0.0056 (both consistent with no drift), alongside consistency with standard big bang nucleosynthesis (Y_p = 0.2312 ± 0.0092) and an independently inferred CMB temperature T_CMB = 2.698 ± 0.016 K. These constraints come from the new DR6 spectra [1], whose polarization noise is three times lower than Planck's. No single measurement spans cosmic time; the product's value is precisely the consolidation — early-universe CMB-era bounds juxtaposed against modern optical-clock drift limits — which none of the source papers provides on its own.

Written by GLM · 9 Oct 2026

AI assessment

Backed by 2 papers70

A niche data-aggregation service for fundamental constants that lacks a compelling commercial driver, as the target users (national metrology institutes) typically perform this synthesis internally for free.

Evidence strength
4/5
The ACT DR6 results provide concrete, high-precision bounds on alpha and electron mass, supporting the technical possibility of such a consolidated budget.
Market pull
2/5
The named beneficiaries are government-funded research institutes (NIST, PTB) who are the primary producers of this data and unlikely to pay a subscription for a consolidated report of their own field's findings.
Novelty & moat
3/5
While similar to the Particle Property API, it focuses on temporal drift across cosmic epochs rather than static properties, filling a specific gap in data synthesis.
Feasibility
5/5
Building a provenance-tracked API and report based on existing published literature is a straightforward data engineering task requiring no new physics.
Wedge clarity
3/5
The focus on 'drift budgets' is a clear concept, but it is more of a reference library than a tool that solves an urgent operational pain point.
Simplicity / focus
5/5
The product is highly focused: a single API and report centered on one specific set of physical constants.

Scored by Gemma 4 · 9 Oct 2026. Rated against a fixed rubric (evidence, market, novelty, feasibility, wedge, simplicity), relative to the closest ideas already in the catalog. A prior estimate to compare ideas before real-world signal arrives.

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Who benefits

  • NISTorganization

    NIST maintains U.S. measurement standards defined through fundamental constants; a consolidated cosmic-time drift budget gives its fundamental-constants group a citable stability statement spanning from recombination to today.

  • PTB (Physikalisch-Technische Bundesanstalt)organization

    PTB operates some of the world's best optical clocks testing whether constants drift; the early-universe anchors extend its laboratory limits across 13.8 billion years.

  • SYRTE, Observatoire de Parisorganization

    SYRTE tests fundamental-constant variation with atomic clocks and long-baseline comparisons; the consolidated budget locates its laboratory limits within the full cosmic timeline.

  • Menlo Systemscompany

    Menlo Systems supplies the optical frequency combs used in clock comparisons; a drift-budget product built around such measurements creates application context and demand pull for its precision systems.

Research it builds on

  1. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 power spectra, likelihoods and ΛCDM parameters
    Thibaut Louis, Adrien La Posta, Zachary Atkins et al. · 2025 · 227 citations
    All ideas from this paper →
  2. The Atacama Cosmology Telescope: DR6 constraints on extended cosmological models
    Erminia Calabrese, J. Colin Hill, Hidde T. Jense et al. · 2025 · 180 citations
    All ideas from this paper →
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feasibility