All of them are difficult to conceive, and make you wonder if we really have as good of an understanding on the world and the universe as we think. I noticed this is a rather old article, have any of these anomalies been figured out since? Also, I'm confused on the difference between dark matter and dark energy. Can some one explain?
I'm most interested in the deviating probs they sent out in the late 70's. Also, the changing of our constants? Is this real or just calculation erros...
Dark matter tries to explain why galaxies hold together. Given regular matter alone, galaxies might never have formed, and today they would fly apart. So there must be some unknown stuff to hold things together.
Dark energy was hypothesized when astronomers discovered the universe is not just expanding, but racing out at an ever-faster pace. There must be some unknown force, a sort of anti-gravity, must be pushing galaxies apart from each another.
In the end they may be manifestations of the same thing.
---------------
As for have any of these things been solved. I don't think so. Any solution to any of these would be big news I'd think. At least big physics news.
This Dark Matter thing is confusing and Intriguing, but it seems to be the answer they're throwing at everything we don't have answers for. It seems that there is obviously something out there to account for all these discrepancies in scientist's original reasoning, I just wish we could get more of a handle on it. Neat articles!
Many of them are cosmology/physics puzzles, which while interesting don't really surprise me too much as it is freely admited that we don't have all the answers about the universe and how it works. Who knows but some future generations will look back on our physics like we do at Newton's. What intrigues me the most is the question of life on Mars. Finding that would be huge. Would it share our DNA heritige? Would it be obviously alien? Would we find that it was our progenitor and not the other way around. The discovery of life on our closest neighbor would be a seriously awesome discovery.
I know that this has been explained, but for some reason I don't understand that if matter and anti-matter were created in equal amounts, why is there more matter than anti. Shouldn't they have canceled each other out? Personally, I love the mysteries of the Universe, it would be very sad if we knew everything.
But the thing that is interesting to me is that so much of our "knowledge" of the universe is based on physics with so many fundamental open questions. If we can close any of them there would be breakthroughs galore and a lot of rewriting of fundamental laws.
My top in the interesting list currently (as of today) is:
1)The mind-body problem lots fall under this category The placebo effect The nocebo effect Morgellons disease 2)The Kuiper cliff 3)Parallel/Multiple Universes 4)Extra Terrestrial Life/Other Earths
"It would be very sad if we knew everything" I don't know. Sure the wonder of invention and discovery are awesome things but I doubt it would be sad if we knew everything. Maybe just boring. But even then, knowing how the universe works adds to its beauty, it doens't take away from it. Also even knowing everything (that is, in a cosmology sense) would still leave relationships, joy sadness, pain, love...you get the idea. Personally, I look forward to the day that we do "know everthing" I just don't think that I will be around to see it. And that can be a sad thought. But I suppose that is the nature of things.
Aaron, I agree that the physics questions are great and answering them would be "groundbreaking" to put it lightly. I just think that for me right now, answering the question of life in the universe, would be much more amazing than figuring out why matter seems to predominate and why the universe is expanding at such a great rate. But really do cosmologists/physicists/biologists really doubt that there is life out there? It seems that the general idea is that it is almost inevitable given the "size" of the multiverse. But to find it so close to home. I just hope we do. Could it be that the universe is teeming with life? And that it isn't as unlikely as we think/thought? Anyway I also find the mind-body/unexplained physiology/chemsitry things amazing.
Lets say in the future all knowable knowledge is accumulated in some incorruptible database.
Will any human at that point in time be able to comprehend/contain that mass of data?
I dare say there will still be humans that know all they care to know, not asking questions because they are comfortable with what they know, even though it's available.
I'm sure we'll have some pretty cool toys and if you can conceive of a question you could query the database. But thousands of years after the completion of the database what does it become? What faith would you have to exercise in the truth of the data, in those that collected it.
I think knowing everything is the opposite of sad. I agree with Matthew that knowledge makes things more beautiful. mystery can go take a long walk off a short pier if you ask me. The human body is cool, but when you dissect it down to its different parts even down to the cellular level makes it awesome. A large expansion bridge is a sight to see but when you learn how it was built and the physics and planning involved it becomes so much more than just a bridge. Knowing makes life beautiful.
As far as life in the universe, I thought it was a well accepted theory that there has to be given the size and statistics of it. I read in "scientific america" that the chance of life existing on a planet like ours was something like 1 in a gagillion. And given these odds and the universe's size there should be hundreds of millions or billions (I cant remember the number)of planets with life just like ours. Its statistically improbable that there isn't life.
Now the question of how close are they really gets my attention. That will be a great day when/if contact is made.
I find the mind/body conundrums fascinating as well, but having studied them so much in my psychology classes they aren't as curious to me as some of these physic anomalies that I’m not so use to hearing about.
I have to say that I did not think my statement through. I guess my point was that it would be sad if we thought we knew everything and stopped trying to discover more. This will never happen. I will have to agree with Einstein. The more we study, the more beautiful things become.
13 comments:
All of them are difficult to conceive, and make you wonder if we really have as good of an understanding on the world and the universe as we think. I noticed this is a rather old article, have any of these anomalies been figured out since? Also, I'm confused on the difference between dark matter and dark energy. Can some one explain?
I'm most interested in the deviating probs they sent out in the late 70's. Also, the changing of our constants? Is this real or just calculation erros...
Dark matter tries to explain why galaxies hold together. Given regular matter alone, galaxies might never have formed, and today they would fly apart. So there must be some unknown stuff to hold things together.
Dark energy was hypothesized when astronomers discovered the universe is not just expanding, but racing out at an ever-faster pace. There must be some unknown force, a sort of anti-gravity, must be pushing galaxies apart from each another.
In the end they may be manifestations of the same thing.
---------------
As for have any of these things been solved. I don't think so. Any solution to any of these would be big news I'd think. At least big physics news.
This Dark Matter thing is confusing and Intriguing, but it seems to be the answer they're throwing at everything we don't have answers for. It seems that there is obviously something out there to account for all these discrepancies in scientist's original reasoning, I just wish we could get more of a handle on it. Neat articles!
Many of them are cosmology/physics puzzles, which while interesting don't really surprise me too much as it is freely admited that we don't have all the answers about the universe and how it works. Who knows but some future generations will look back on our physics like we do at Newton's. What intrigues me the most is the question of life on Mars. Finding that would be huge. Would it share our DNA heritige? Would it be obviously alien? Would we find that it was our progenitor and not the other way around. The discovery of life on our closest neighbor would be a seriously awesome discovery.
I know that this has been explained, but for some reason I don't understand that if matter and anti-matter were created in equal amounts, why is there more matter than anti. Shouldn't they have canceled each other out? Personally, I love the mysteries of the Universe, it would be very sad if we knew everything.
I'm pretty sure that the matter anti-matter question is still outstanding.
List of unsolved problems in physics
But the thing that is interesting to me is that so much of our "knowledge" of the universe is based on physics with so many fundamental open questions. If we can close any of them there would be breakthroughs galore and a lot of rewriting of fundamental laws.
My top in the interesting list currently (as of today) is:
1)The mind-body problem
lots fall under this category
The placebo effect
The nocebo effect
Morgellons disease
2)The Kuiper cliff
3)Parallel/Multiple Universes
4)Extra Terrestrial Life/Other Earths
"It would be very sad if we knew everything" I don't know. Sure the wonder of invention and discovery are awesome things but I doubt it would be sad if we knew everything. Maybe just boring. But even then, knowing how the universe works adds to its beauty, it doens't take away from it. Also even knowing everything (that is, in a cosmology sense) would still leave relationships, joy sadness, pain, love...you get the idea. Personally, I look forward to the day that we do "know everthing" I just don't think that I will be around to see it. And that can be a sad thought. But I suppose that is the nature of things.
Aaron, I agree that the physics questions are great and answering them would be "groundbreaking" to put it lightly. I just think that for me right now, answering the question of life in the universe, would be much more amazing than figuring out why matter seems to predominate and why the universe is expanding at such a great rate. But really do cosmologists/physicists/biologists really doubt that there is life out there? It seems that the general idea is that it is almost inevitable given the "size" of the multiverse. But to find it so close to home. I just hope we do. Could it be that the universe is teeming with life? And that it isn't as unlikely as we think/thought? Anyway I also find the mind-body/unexplained physiology/chemsitry things amazing.
Lots of people know everything.
Lets say in the future all knowable knowledge is accumulated in some incorruptible database.
Will any human at that point in time be able to comprehend/contain that mass of data?
I dare say there will still be humans that know all they care to know, not asking questions because they are comfortable with what they know, even though it's available.
I'm sure we'll have some pretty cool toys and if you can conceive of a question you could query the database. But thousands of years after the completion of the database what does it become? What faith would you have to exercise in the truth of the data, in those that collected it.
Sounds it'd be fun to explore in a short story.
I think knowing everything is the opposite of sad. I agree with Matthew that knowledge makes things more beautiful. mystery can go take a long walk off a short pier if you ask me.
The human body is cool, but when you dissect it down to its different parts even down to the cellular level makes it awesome. A large expansion bridge is a sight to see but when you learn how it was built and the physics and planning involved it becomes so much more than just a bridge. Knowing makes life beautiful.
As far as life in the universe, I thought it was a well accepted theory that there has to be given the size and statistics of it. I read in "scientific america" that the chance of life existing on a planet like ours was something like 1 in a gagillion. And given these odds and the universe's size there should be hundreds of millions or billions (I cant remember the number)of planets with life just like ours. Its statistically improbable that there isn't life.
Now the question of how close are they really gets my attention. That will be a great day when/if contact is made.
Michael
I find the mind/body conundrums fascinating as well, but having studied them so much in my psychology classes they aren't as curious to me as some of these physic anomalies that I’m not so use to hearing about.
I have to say that I did not think my statement through. I guess my point was that it would be sad if we thought we knew everything and stopped trying to discover more. This will never happen. I will have to agree with Einstein. The more we study, the more beautiful things become.
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