Surprises in numerical expressions of physical constants Amir, Ariel Lemeshko, Mikhail ; https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6990-7802 Tokieda, Tadashi In science, as in life, &quot;surprises&quot; can be adequately appreciated only in the presence of a null model, what we expect a priori. In physics, theories sometimes express the values of dimensionless physical constants as combinations of mathematical constants like π or e. The inverse problem also arises, whereby the measured value of a physical constant admits a &quot;surprisingly&quot; simple approximation in terms of well-known mathematical constants. Can we estimate the probability for this to be a mere coincidence, rather than an inkling of some theory? We answer the question in the most naive form. Mathematical Association of America 2016 info:eu-repo/semantics/article doc-type:Article Article http://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_2df8fbb1 https://research-explorer.ista.ac.at/record/1204 Amir A, Lemeshko M, Tokieda T. Surprises in numerical expressions of physical constants. <i>American Mathematical Monthly</i>. 2016;123(6):609-612. doi:<a href="https://doi.org/10.4169/amer.math.monthly.123.6.609">10.4169/amer.math.monthly.123.6.609</a> eng info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/doi/10.4169/amer.math.monthly.123.6.609 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/wos/000381754900010 info:eu-repo/semantics/altIdentifier/arxiv/1603.00299 info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess