Possible variations of the fine structure constant α\alpha and their metrological significance

We briefly review the recent experimental results on possible variations of the fine structure constant $\alpha$ on the cosmological time scale and its position dependence. We outline the theoretical grounds for the assumption that $\alpha$ might be variable, mention some phenomenological models incorporating a variable $\alpha$ into the context of modern cosmology and discuss the significance of possible $\alpha$ variations for theoretical and practical metrology.Comment: Latex, 17 pages, brief review. References updated, minor errors remove