Right, they are symbolized "relational values". The symbols are unimportant, it is the differential ratios in values that "count".
Somerfeld's constant, a.k.a. the Fine Structure constant is approximately 1/137. The best way I have found to think of this constant is as a ratio of two energies: that of the electrostatic energy of two electrons a certain distance apart to the energy of a photon with a wavelength of the same distance x 2π. So it's something that relates electrostatics to radiation in a vacuum, i.e. the to properties of the vacuum. There are other ways to express it involving magnetic permeability of the vacuum etc., but it always comes down to properties of the vacuum relative to electric charge in some form. I think.......
Indeed, physics might be just a set of relations between physical units. The problem with a language of physics is that formally, a language doesn't have any meaning; meaning is not related to the information content of a message in some language. So what does energy mean, is not a useful physical question, type of thing. On the other hand, questions in physics kind of need to be meaningful; the "why ask otherwise" caveat.
