Universal constant

By one account, the three universal constants were the following:

1. Planck's quantum of action;
2. Toast always falling butter-side down;
3. The reaction of those entering the TARDIS for the first time; (PROSE: The Secret in Vault 13 ^[+]Loading...["The Secret in Vault 13 (novel)"]) ie. eyes "boggling", followed by an extremely common remark, that "it's bigger on the inside!" (PROSE: The Secret in Vault 13 ^[+]Loading...["The Secret in Vault 13 (novel)"]; TV: The Three Doctors ^[+]Loading...["The Three Doctors (TV story)"], Robot ^[+]Loading...["Robot (TV story)"], Rose ^[+]Loading...["Rose (TV story)"], The Runaway Bride ^[+]Loading...["The Runaway Bride (TV story)"], Smith and Jones ^[+]Loading...["Smith and Jones (TV story)"], The Eleventh Hour ^[+]Loading...["The Eleventh Hour (TV story)"], The Bells of Saint John ^[+]Loading...["The Bells of Saint John (TV story)"], The Husbands of River Song ^[+]Loading...["The Husbands of River Song (TV story)"], The Pilot ^[+]Loading...["The Pilot (TV story)"], etc.)

Behind the scenes

Planck's constant ($h$), proposed by Max Planck in 1900, is indeed one of the physical constants, which number greater than three. Some other more well-known constants include:

1. The speed of light in a vacuum ($c$);
2. The gravitational constant ($G$);
3. The electric constant ($\epsilon _{0}$);
4. The elementary charge ($e$).

Though it may at first appear the latter two "constants" do not fit any conventional technical definition of that term, the so-called "buttered toast phenomenon" has been studied by physicists, including by Robert Matthews, who entitled his 1995 paper Tumbling toast, Murphy's Law and the fundamental constants.

This won him the 1996 Ig Nobel Prize, a lighthearted, humorous award given out for "achievements that first make people laugh, and then make them think". Not all studies have garnered the same results.