"We know what kind of a dance to do experimentally to measure this number very accurately, but we don't what kind of a dance to do on a computer to make this number come out—without putting it in secretly!"

"... an understanding of the numerical value of the fine structure constant may emerge ... charge might be an emergent property generated by a simple interaction mechanism between point-like particles and the electromagnetic vacuum, similar to the process that generates the Lamb shift."

"The theoretical determination of the fine structure constant is certainly the most important of the unsolved problems of modern physics. To reach it, we shall, presumably, have to pay with further revolutionary changes of the fundamental concepts of physics with a still farther digression from the concepts of the classical theories."

"The title of my talk may seem a bit ambitious, but please note the plural “constants”. To calculate the fine structure constant, 1/137, we would need a realistic model of just about everything, and this we do not have. In this talk I want to return to the old question of what it is that determines gauge couplings in general, and try to prepare the ground for a future realistic calculation."