The Cosmologist Eddington based a whole cosmology on the fact that
the fine structure constant is very nearly 1/137.  Dirac and others
Have called attention to the fact that the large number representing the
number of atoms in the universe comes up in many other places as well.
Dimensionless numbers such as these are the most interesting.  The others
may be conceptually important, but you can change their values by changing
the units.  The fine structure constant combines e, Planck's constant and
the speed of light in a dimensionless form.

I read somewhere that Berg claimed that his quote of a Bach chorale in
the Violin Concerto was in fact the natural result of his use of tone
rows.  Can the experts shed light on this? I found Stirling's communication
extremely enlightening not least because he discussed the 12 tone influence
over a range of music - in some cases music considered quite conservative.

Professor Bernard Chasan
Physics Department, Boston University