"Instead, the measurements match beautifully, largely ruling out some proposals for new particles" from what I understand this is some kind of Occam's razor argument saying that we don't need anything more in the standard model to explain the measurements but is this only qualitatively reasoning or does it actually gives some quantitative constrains to the possibility of new particles? I mean some particles have been predicted before being discovered (the Higgs and neutrinos I have read but there must be more) in those cases have the physicists actually gone and calculated constraints to the possibilities of that particle existing depending on the measurement of the fine structure constant?
great comment, also something unrelated looking at your website I was hoping to find some notes about how to write in latex I have seen some submissions at HN but I think you could give some awesome tips