Experimental Consequences of Time Variations of the Fundamental Constants

Abstract

We discuss the experimental consequences of hypothetical time variations of the fundamental constants. We emphasize that from a purely phenomenological point of view, only dimensionless fundamental constants have significance. Two classes of experiments are identified that give results that are essentially independent of the values of all constants. Finally, we show that experiments that are generally interpreted in terms of time variations of the dimensioned gravitional constant $G$ are better interpreted as giving limits on the variation of the dimensionless constant $\alpha_G=Gm_p^2/\hbar c$.