Despite all the achievements of science, there are still many blind spots in it. New Scientist magazine published a list mysterious phenomena, which scientists are unable to explain.
1. Placebo effect
Don't try this at home! Over the course of several days, you hurt someone multiple times a day. You relieve pain with morphine, up to last day experiment, and then replace the morphine with saline solution. And guess what happens? Saline solution relieves pain.
This is the placebo effect: somehow a compound out of nothing can have a very powerful effect. Doctors have known about the placebo effect for a long time. But other than the fact that it apparently has a biochemical nature, we know nothing. One thing is clear: the mind can influence the biochemistry of the body.
2. Horizon problem
Our Universe turns out to be inexplicably united. Look at space from one end of the visible Universe to the other, and you will see that the background microwave radiation in space has the same temperature throughout. This doesn't seem surprising until you remember that these two edges are 28 billion light years apart, and our Universe is only 14 billion years old.
Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so it is impossible for thermal radiation to travel between the two horizons and balance the hot and cold zones created during the Big Bang, establishing the thermal equilibrium we see today.
From a scientific point of view, the same background radiation temperature is an anomaly. It could be explained by recognizing that the speed of light is not constant. But even in this case, we are still powerless to face the question: why?
3. Ultra-energy cosmic rays
For more than a decade, physicists in Japan have been observing cosmic rays that shouldn't exist. Cosmic rays are particles that travel through the Universe at speeds close to the speed of light. Some cosmic rays come to Earth through violent events, such as a supernova explosion. But we know nothing about the origin of the high-energy particles observed in nature. And even this is not a real secret.
As cosmic ray particles travel through space, they lose energy when they collide with low-energy photons, such as those from the cosmic microwave background radiation. However, the University of Tokyo discovered cosmic rays with very high energy. Theoretically, they could only appear from our galaxy, but astronomers cannot find the source of these cosmic rays in our galaxy.
4. The phenomenon of homeopathy
Madeleine Ennis, a pharmacologist at Queen's University Belfast, is a disaster for homeopathy. She opposed the claims of homeopaths that chemical agent can be diluted to such an extent that the sample contains virtually nothing but water and still have healing powers. Ennis decided to prove once and for all that homeopathy was just talk.
In his last job she describes how her group, in four different laboratories, studied the effects of ultra-dilute histamine solutions on white blood cells involved in inflammation. To the surprise of scientists, it turned out that homeopathic solutions (diluted to such an extent that they apparently did not contain even a single molecule of histamine) worked the same way as histamine.
Before these experiments, no homeopathic remedy had ever worked in a clinical trial. But the Belfast study suggests that something is happening. "We," says Ennis, "cannot explain our findings and report them to encourage others to investigate this phenomenon."
If the results turn out to be real, she believes, the consequences could be quite significant: we may have to rewrite physics and chemistry.
5. Dark matter
Take our best knowledge of gravity, apply it to the rotation of galaxies, and you immediately find a problem: according to our knowledge, galaxies should be breaking apart. Galactic matter revolves around center point, since its gravitational attraction creates centripetal forces. But there is not enough mass in galaxies to create the observed rotation.
Vera Rubin, an astronomer at the Department of Terrestrial Magnetism at the Carnegie Institution in Washington, noticed this anomaly in the late seventies of the last century. The best answer physicists could come up with was that there is more matter in the Universe than we can observe. The problem was that no one could explain what this "dark matter" was.
Scientists still cannot explain it, and this is an unpleasant gap in our understanding. Astronomical observations suggest that dark matter should make up approximately 90% of the mass of the Universe, and yet we are astonishingly ignorant of what that 90% is.
6. Life on Mars
July 20, 1976. Gilbert Levin sits on the very edge of his chair. Millions of kilometers away, on Mars, descending spacecraft Viking took soil samples. Levin's equipment mixed them with a substance containing carbon-14. Scientists participating in the experiment believe that if methane emissions containing carbon-14 are found in the soil, then there should be life on Mars.
Viking analyzers give a positive result. Something is consuming nutrients, converts them and then releases a gas containing carbon-14. But why is there no holiday?
Because another analyzer, designed to identify organic molecules that are essential signs of life, found nothing. Scientists were cautious and declared the Viking's discoveries a false positive. But is it?
Results transmitted from NASA's latest spacecraft show that the surface of Mars almost certainly contained water in the past and was therefore favorable for life. There is other evidence. "Every mission to Mars," says Gilbert Levin, "provides data that supports my conclusion. None of it contradicts it."
Levin no longer defends his views alone. Joe Miller, a microbiologist at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, reanalyzed the data and believes the spikes show signs of a circadian cycle. And this with a high degree of probability suggests the presence of life. Whether these scientists are right is still unknown.
7. Tetraneutrons
Four years ago, six particles were discovered that should not have existed. They were called tetraneutrons - four neutrons that are in a bond that defies the laws of physics.
A team of scientists from Caen, led by Francisco Miguel Marquès, fired beryllium nuclei at a small carbon target and analyzed their trajectories using detectors. Scientists expected to see four different neutrons hitting different detectors. Instead, they detected only one flash of light in one detector.
The energy of this flare showed that all four neutrons hit the same detector. Perhaps it's just a coincidence, and four neutrons accidentally hit the same place at the same time. But this is ridiculously unlikely.
At the same time, such behavior is not unlikely for tetraneutrons. True, some may argue that according to standard model particle physicists, tetraneutrons simply cannot exist. After all, according to the Pauli principle, in one system there are not even two protons or neutrons that could have the same quantum properties. The nuclear force holding them together is such that it cannot hold even two single neutrons, let alone four.
Marquez and his team were so stunned by the results that they “buried” the data in scientific work, which spoke of a certain probability of the discovery of tetraneutrons in the future. After all, if you start changing the laws of physics to justify the connection of four neutrons, chaos will arise.
Recognizing the existence of tetraneutrons would mean that the combination of elements formed after the Big Bang is not consistent with what we now observe. And, to make matters worse, the formed elements become too heavy for space. "The universe would probably collapse before it expanded," says Natalia Timofeyuk, a theorist at the University of Surrey in Guildford, UK.
However, there is other evidence that suggests that matter may consist of numerous neutrons. These are neutron stars. They contain a huge number of bound neutrons, which means that when the neutrons gather in masses, forces that are still inexplicable to us come into play.
8. Pioneer Anomaly
In 1972, the Americans launched the Pioneer-10 spacecraft. On board there was a message to extraterrestrial civilizations - a sign with images of a man, a woman and a diagram of the location of the Earth in space. A year later, Pioneer 11 followed. By now, both devices should already be in deep space. However, in an unusual way, their trajectories deviated greatly from the calculated ones.
Something began to pull (or push) them, as a result of which they began to move with acceleration. It was tiny - less than a nanometer per second, equivalent to one ten-billionth of the gravity on the Earth's surface. But this was enough to shift Pioneer 10 off its trajectory by 400,000 kilometers.
NASA lost contact with Pioneer 11 in 1995, but until then it deviated from its trajectory in the same way as its predecessor. What caused this? No one knows.
Some possible explanations have already been dismissed, including software bugs, solar wind and fuel leaks. If the cause was some kind of gravitational effect, then we know nothing about it. Physicists are simply at a loss.
9. Dark energy
This is one of the best known and most intractable problems in physics. In 1998, astronomers discovered that the Universe was expanding at an ever-increasing rate. Previously, it was believed that after the Big Bang the expansion of the Universe slowed down.
Scientists have not yet found a reasonable explanation for this discovery. One of the assumptions is that some property of empty space is responsible for this phenomenon. Cosmologists called it dark energy. But all attempts to identify her failed.
10. The tenth planet
If you travel to the very edge of the solar system, into the cold zone of space beyond Pluto, you will see something strange. After passing through the Kuiper Belt - a region of space riddled with icy rocks - you'll suddenly see empty space.
Astronomers call this boundary the Kuiper rock, since after it the density of the cosmic rock belt decreases sharply. What is the reason? The only answer to this may be the presence of a tenth planet in our solar system. Moreover, in order to clear space of debris in this way, it must be as massive as the Earth or Mars.
But, although calculations show that such a body could cause the existence of the Kuiper belt, no one has ever seen this legendary tenth planet.
11. Cosmic signal WOW
It lasted 37 seconds and came from space. On August 15, 1977, on a printout from a radio telescope in Delaware, recorders wrote: WOW. And twenty-eight years later, no one knows what caused this signal.
The pulses came from the constellation Sagittarius at a frequency of about 1420 MHz. Transmissions in this range are prohibited by international agreement. Natural springs emissions, such as thermal emissions from planets, cover a much wider range of frequencies. What caused the emission of these pulses? There is still no answer.
The closest star to us in this direction is 220 light years away. If the signal came from there, then it must either be a huge astronomical event, or an advanced extraterrestrial civilization with a surprisingly powerful transmitter.
All subsequent observations on the same part of the sky led to nothing. No such signal as WOW has been recorded.
12. Such fickle constants
In 1997, astronomer John Webb and his team at the University of New South Wales in Sydney analyzed the light coming to Earth from distant quasars. On its 12 billion-year journey, the light passes through interstellar clouds made of metals such as iron, nickel and chromium. The researchers found that these atoms absorb photons of light from the quasar, but not at all what was expected.
The only more or less reasonable explanation for this phenomenon is that a physical constant, called the fine structure constant, or alpha, has a different value when light passes through clouds.
But this is heresy! Alpha is an extremely important constant that determines how light interacts with matter, and it must not change! Its value depends, among other things, on the charge of the electron, the speed of light and Planck's constant. Is it possible that some of these parameters actually changed?!
None of the physicists wanted to believe that the measurements were correct. Webb and his team spent years trying to find errors in their results. But they still haven't succeeded.
Webb's results aren't the only ones that suggest there's something wrong with our understanding of alpha. Recent analysis of the only known natural nuclear reactor, which operated nearly 2 billion years ago at what is now Oklo in Gabon, also suggests that something has changed in the way light interacts with matter.
The proportion of certain radioactive isotopes produced in such a reactor depends on alpha, and therefore analysis of the fission products preserved in Oklo soil makes it possible to determine the value of the constant at the time of their formation.
Using this method, Steve Lamoreaux and his colleagues at Los Alamos national laboratory New Mexico suggested that alpha had decreased by more than 4% since Oklo. And this means that our ideas about constants may turn out to be incorrect.
13. Low temperature nuclear fusion (LTF)
After an absence of sixteen years he returned. Although, in fact, NTS never disappeared. Since 1989, US Navy laboratories have conducted more than 200 experiments to determine whether nuclear reactions can room temperature generate more energy than it consumes (it is believed that this is only possible inside stars).
Controlled nuclear fusion would solve many of the world's energy problems. It's no wonder the US Department of Energy is so interested in it. Last December, after a lengthy review of all the evidence, it announced that it was open to proposals for new NTS experiments.
This is a pretty sharp turn. Fifteen years ago, this same department concluded that the initial results on NTS obtained by Martin Fleischmann and Stanley Pons of the University of Utah and presented at a press conference in 1989 could not be confirmed, and thus they are probably false.
The basic principle of NTS is that immersing palladium electrodes in heavy water (in which oxygen is combined with an isotope of heavy hydrogen) can release a large number of energy. The catch is that all generally accepted scientific theories They believe that nuclear fusion at room temperature is impossible.
Based on materials from New Scientist magazine
Science emerged out of the need to answer people's questions.
And it seems that most of the complex phenomena have been studied far and wide, but “very little” remains - to understand the nature of dark matter, to understand the problem of quantum gravity, to solve the problem of the dimension of space-time, to understand what dark energy is (and several hundred more similar questions ).
However, there are still seemingly simpler phenomena that scientists cannot fully explain.
What is glass?
NOBEL LAUREATE WARREN ANDERSON ONCE SAID:"The deepest and most interesting of the unsolved problems in solid state theory lies in the nature of glass." And although glass has been known to mankind for more than a millennium, scientists still do not understand the reason for its unique mechanical properties. From school lessons we remember that glass is a liquid, but is it so? Scientists do not know exactly what the nature of the transition between liquid or solid and glassy phases is and what physical processes lead to the basic properties of glass.
The process of glass formation cannot be explained using any of the current tools of solid state physics, many-body theory, or fluid theory. Briefly described, liquid molten glass, as it cools, gradually becomes more and more viscous until it becomes rigid. While during the formation of crystalline solids, for example, graphite, the atoms instantly form the usual periodic structures. Tarun Chitra, a molecular dynamics researcher, explains the organization of molecules in different substances using the example of dance:
An ideal solid body is like a slow dance, when two partners, together with other couples, move around their starting position on the dance floor.
An ideal fluid is like a dating party where everyone tries to dance with everyone in the room (this property is called ergodicity), but the average tempo at which everyone dances is approximately the same.
In this analogy, glass is similar to a dance, when a group of people is divided into smaller subgroups and each one spins in its own round dance. You can change partners from your circle, and this dance goes on forever.
Glass behaves in such a way that it cannot yet be described by equilibrium statistical mechanics. In particular, subexponential autocorrelations and glass cross-correlation function can be obtained by infinite number random processes. Up to a certain point, the system “works” more or less clearly and predictably, but if you watch it long enough, you begin to see how some features are better described by the theory of probability and random processes.
Why doesn't the bike fall on its side?
THE DESIGN OF THE BICYCLE IS PRETTY SIMPLE, and it seems that it has long been clear how and why a two-wheeled vehicle retains excellent stability. It has always been believed that two mechanisms play a critical role in maintaining the balance of a bicycle. The first is automatic steering, or the castor effect: if the bicycle leans in one direction, the front wheel itself turns in the same direction, after which centrifugal force returns the wheel to its original position. The second mechanism is associated with the gyroscopic moment of the rotating wheels.
American engineer Andy Ruina and his colleagues set out to refute both of these statements. They designed a bicycle similar to a scooter, in which the front wheel touches the support before the point where the front fork axis intersects it, which “cancels” the effect of the castor. And in addition, the front and rear wheels are connected to two others, rotating in reverse side, and thereby nullifying the gyroscopic effect.
However, this bike doesn't fall on its side all that quickly. In fact, it maintains balance no worse than a regular bicycle and even demonstrates the same automatic steering. Based on the results of the experiment, the authors concluded that both effects - the castor and the gyroscope - play an important role in maintaining the balance of a riding bicycle, but both are not critical for it.
Why the bicycle does not fall is still unknown. According to the latest assumptions of engineers, the special load distribution plays a key role in this.
How does a placebo work?
About placebos, or substances that have no obvious medicinal properties, but have a positive effect on the body, has been known for a long time. The placebo effect is based on a psycho-emotional effect. But researchers have repeatedly shown that placebos, which have no active ingredients, can stimulate real physiological responses, including changes in heart rate and blood pressure, as well as chemical activity in the brain. Placebos also help relieve pain, depression, anxiety, fatigue, and even some symptoms of Parkinson's disease.
How our psyche can affect our health is still not completely clear, and scientists cannot uncover the mechanisms underlying physiological responses to placebos. It is obvious that there is a lot intertwined in the effect various aspects, while dummy drugs do not affect the source or cause of the disease. It has been experimentally established that the body's reaction differs depending on the method of placebo delivery (by taking tablets or injections). Also, placebos provide only the expected, that is, known in advance, therapeutic effect. And the higher the expectations, the stronger the placebo effect. In addition, it is known that it can be strengthened by active verbal influence on the patient. Not everyone is affected by placebos. More often, placebos act on extroverts, people with high levels of anxiety, suspiciousness, and lack of self-confidence.
In October 2013, a study was published showing that the placebo effect is associated with an increase in alpha activity in the brain. Alpha waves occur in a relaxed state, which is similar to a light trance or meditation - that is, in the most suggestible state. The placebo effect has a significant impact on nervous system people in the area spinal cord. But so far no one has been able to describe in detail the mechanism of its effect.
What did the wow signal from outer space mean?
ON AUGUST 15, 1977, ONE OF THE MOST MYSTERIOUS EVENTS IN THE HISTORY OF SPACE EXPLORATION HAPPENED. Dr. Jerry Eyman, while working on the Big Ear radio telescope as part of the SETI project, detected a strong narrow-band space radio signal. Its characteristics (transmission bandwidth, signal-to-noise ratio) corresponded to those expected from a signal of extraterrestrial origin. Amazed by this, Eyman circled the corresponding symbols on the printout and wrote “Wow!” in the margin. This signature gave the signal its name.
The signal came from an area of the sky in the constellation Sagittarius, about 2.5 degrees south of the Chi star group. However, after years of waiting for something like this to happen again, nothing happened.
SCIENTISTS SAY THAT IF THE SIGNAL WAS OF EXTRATERRESTRIAL ORIGIN, then the beings who sent it must belong to a very, very advanced civilization. To send such a powerful signal requires at least a 2.2-gigawatt transmitter, which is much more powerful than any on Earth (for example, the HAARP system in Alaska, one of the most powerful in the world, is supposedly capable of transmitting a signal of up to 3,600 kW).
One of the hypotheses to explain the signal strength is that the initially weak signal was significantly amplified due to the action of a gravitational lens; however, this still does not exclude the possibility of its artificial origin. Other researchers suggest the possibility of rotating the radiation source like a beacon, periodically changing the frequency of the signal, or making it only once. There is also a version that the signal was sent from a moving alien starship.
In 2012, for the signal's 35th anniversary, the Arecibo Observatory sent a response of 10,000 coded tweets in the direction of the suspected source. However, whether anyone received them is unknown. Until now, the wow signal remains one of the main mysteries for astrophysicists.
How does inanimate matter become living?
IN THE SCIENTIFIC WORLD TODAY THE CONCEPT OF BIOLOGICAL EVOLUTION PREVAILS, according to which the first life arose on its own from inorganic components as a result of physical and chemical processes. The theory of abiogenesis describes how living matter arises from inanimate matter. However, there are a lot of problems with it.
It is known that the main components of living matter are amino acids. But the probability of the random occurrence of a certain amino acid-nucleotide sequence corresponds to the probability that several thousand letters from a typeface will be thrown from the roof of a skyscraper and folded into a certain page of a Dostoevsky novel. Abiogenesis in its classical form suggests that such “dumping of the font” occurred thousands of times - that is, as many times as it took until it formed into the required sequence. However, according to modern calculations, this would take much longer than the existence of the entire Universe.
At the same time, in laboratory conditions, all attempts to create an artificial living cell have never been successful. A complete set of amino acids and nucleotides and the simplest bacterial cell are still separated by an abyss. Perhaps the first living cells were very different from those we can observe now. Also, a large number of scientists support the hypothesis that the first living cells could have arrived on our planet thanks to meteorites, comets and other extraterrestrial objects.
Why are people divided into left-handers and right-handers?
OVER THE LAST 100 YEARS, SCIENTISTS HAVE STUDYED THE PROBLEM PRETTY WELL, why do people predominantly use one hand and why is this more often the case? right hand. However, there is no standard empirical testing for right-handedness or left-handedness, since scientists cannot fully understand what mechanisms are involved in this process.
Scientists disagree on what percentage of humanity is right-handed and what percentage is left-handed. In general, it is believed that the majority (70% to 95%) are right-handed, the minority (5% to 30%) are left-handed, and there is an unknown number of people with complete symmetry. It has been proven that genes influence left-handedness and right-handedness, but the exact “left-handed gene” has not yet been identified. There is evidence that the tendency to use the right or left hand may be influenced by social and cultural mechanisms. The most typical example of this is how teachers retrained children, forcing them to switch from their left hand to their right when writing. At the same time, on this moment more totalitarian societies have fewer left-handers than more liberal societies.
Portrait of Paul Broca
Some researchers talk about "pathological" left-handedness associated with brain injuries during childbirth. In the 1860s, French surgeon Paul Broca noted the relationship between hand activity and the hemispheres of the brain. According to his theory, the halves of the brain are connected to the halves of the body in a crosswise manner. But what we now know is that these connections are not as simple as Brock described them. Research conducted in the 1970s showed that most left-handers have the same left-hemisphere activity that is typical of all people. Moreover, only a part of left-handers have various deviations from the norm.
By studying the problems of left-handedness and right-handedness in primates, scientists have found that the majority of animals in a particular population are either left-handed or right-handed. In this case, individual monkeys often develop their own individual preferences.
As a result, we currently only have general presentation about the causes of right-handedness, and researchers have yet to understand in detail all the mechanisms of their formation.
Why are we sleeping?
WE SLEEP 36% OF OUR LIFE, BUT SCIENTISTS CANNOT COMPLETELY EXPLAIN ITS NATURE. People tend to sleep because it is in our genes, but why such a state appeared in the process of evolution is a mystery. Apart from warm-blooded animals (mammals and birds), no living creature has these forms of sleep, and what the benefits of sleep are is still unclear.
SCIENTISTS HAVE ALREADY FOUND THAT DURING SLEEP, MUSCLES GROW FASTER, WOUNDS HEAL BETTER, and also accelerates protein synthesis. In other words, sleep helps the body replenish what it lost while awake. Recent studies have proven that during sleep our brain cleanses itself of toxins, and if a person interferes with this process (in other words, does not sleep), he may experience psychical deviations. In addition, during rest in the brain, the connections between cells are weakened or disconnected, thus we “free up space” for intake new information. New synapses are generated in the brain, so lack of sleep threatens to reduce the ability to acquire, process and remember information.
During sleep, the brain often "replays" some of the episodes that happened to us during the day, and, according to researchers, this process helps strengthen our memory. Although the content of dreams is determined by real impressions, our consciousness during sleep is different from our consciousness during the waking period. In a dream, our perception of the world turns out to be much more imaginative and emotional. We see various pictures, worry about them, but cannot comprehend them properly. Scientists believe that the synchronizing mechanisms that dominate the sleepy brain are largely associated with the first signaling system and emotional sphere. But what dreams represent cannot yet be answered unequivocally.
Why do cats purr?
NO ONE KNOWS FOR SURE WHY CATS PURRY. Purring differs from many other sounds made by animals in that vocalization occurs throughout the entire respiratory cycle (both inhalation and exhalation). It was once thought that sound was produced by blood flowing through the inferior vena cava, but most scientists now agree that the larynx, laryngeal muscles, and neural oscillator are involved in the process of sound production.
Kittens learn to purr as soon as they are a couple of days old. Veterinarians suggest that their purring means something like the human words “mama,” “I’m okay,” or “I’m here.” These sounds help strengthen the bond between the kitten and its mother.
But as the kitten grows up, it also continues to purr, and many researchers are convinced that in adulthood this sound is associated with pleasure and joy. Sometimes cats purr when they are injured or sick. Dr. Elisabeth von Muggenthaler suggests that purring and the low-frequency vibrations it produces are a "natural self-healing mechanism" and strengthen, heal wounds and relieve pain.
The vocal feature of domestic cats is not unique. Other felines, such as bobcats, cheetahs and pumas, also purr. Although some big cats(lions, leopards, jaguars, tigers, Snow leopards and clouded leopards) cannot do this.
Have you ever asked yourself questions for which you had to look for answers in scientific publications and on the Internet? It turns out that science could not answer many questions due to insufficient knowledge and facts.
And, despite the fact that every day scientists ask questions, build hypotheses and try to find evidence, this does not give absolute confidence in the accuracy of their answers. Perhaps there is not enough research data, or maybe humanity is not yet ready for new discoveries. We have collected for you 25 questions that baffle the smartest scientists. Maybe you can find a rational answer!?
1. Can a person stop aging?
In fact, it is still unclear what exactly in the human body ages, causing the biological clock to tick. It is known that the body accumulates molecular damage that leads to aging, but the mechanism is not fully understood. Therefore, it is difficult to talk about stopping the process if the reason is not completely clear!
2. Is biology a universal science?
Despite the fact that biology is on a par with physics and chemistry, it is unclear whether biological facts can be extended to living organisms from other planets. For example, will the same life forms have similar DNA structure and molecular structure? Or maybe everything is completely different?
3. Does the Universe have a purpose?
4. Will humanity be able to maintain a decent standard of living on Earth in the 21st century?
Since ancient times, people have been interested in the possibilities that would allow humanity to live and develop on the planet. But everyone understood that the reserves natural resources may not be enough. At least this was the case before the industrial revolution. Although even after it, politicians and analysts believed that such a large number of people could not live on the planet. Certainly, railways, construction, electricity and other industries proved the opposite. Today this question has returned again.
5. What is music and why do people have it?
Why is it so pleasant for a person to listen to various combinations of musical vibrations at different frequencies? Why do people know how to do this? And what is the goal? One of the hypotheses put forward is that music helps to reproduce, acting like a peacock's tail. But this is only a hypothesis that has no confirmation.
6. Will there be artificially farmed fish?
Yes, such a discovery could significantly solve the problem of starving people in the world. But today, artificial fishing is more of a fiction than a future event.
7. Will humans ever be able to predict the future of economic and social systems?
In other words, can economists accurately predict financial crises? No matter how sad it may sound, it is unlikely. At least in the near future.
8. What influences a person more: environment or upbringing?
As they say, the question of education is always open. And no one can say with certainty that a person who grew up in a good family with an exemplary upbringing will become a normal member of society.
9. What is life?
From a subjective point of view, each person can define the concept of “life”. But even scientists do not have an exact answer to this question. For example, can we say that machines are alive? Or are viruses living beings?
10. Will a person ever be able to successfully transplant a brain?
A person has learned to perform various operations to transplant skin, organs and limbs. But the brain remains an unknown area that cannot yet be explained.
11. Can a person feel as free as possible?
Are you sure that you are an absolutely free person who is guided only by his own will and desires? Or maybe all your actions were planned in advance by the movement of atoms in your body? Or is it still not? There are a lot of assumptions, but there is no concrete answer.
12. What is art?
Despite the fact that many writers, musicians, and artists have answered this question, science still cannot clearly say why a person is so attracted to beautiful patterns, colors and designs. What purpose does art serve and what is beauty? These are questions that cannot be answered.
13. Did man discover mathematics, or did he invent it?
In our world, much is subject to a mathematical structure. But are we so sure that we invented mathematics ourselves? What if the Universe decided that human life should depend on numbers?
14. What is gravity?
We know that gravity causes objects to attract each other, but why? Scientists tried to explain this through the presence of gravitons - particles that carry gravitational influence without a charge. But even this hypothesis has not been proven.
15. Why are we here?
Everyone knows that we ended up on the planet because of the Big Bang, but why did this happen?
16. What is consciousness?
Surprisingly, the difference between consciousness and unconsciousness is very difficult to see. From a macroscopic perspective, everything seems easy: some are awake, some are not. But at the microscopic level, scientists are still trying to find an explanation.
17. Why do we sleep?
We are used to thinking that our body should rest and sleep. But it turns out our brains are just as active at night as they are during the day. Moreover, the human body does not need sleep at all to restore its strength. All that remains is to find a logical explanation for the dream.
18. Is there alien life in the Universe?
For many decades, people have wondered about the existence of other life in the Universe. But so far there has been no evidence of this.
19. Where is everything in the Universe?
If you put all the stars and galaxies together, they make up only 5% of the total energy mass of the Universe. Dark matter and energy make up 95% of the Universe. This means that we do not see even a ninth part of what is hidden in the Universe.
20. Will we ever be able to predict the weather?
The weather is notoriously difficult to predict. It all depends on the terrain, pressure, humidity. Several weather front changes can occur in the same place during the day. You may ask, how do meteorologists predict the weather? Weather services predict climate change, but not accurate weather. That is, they express the average value and no more.
21. What are ethical standards?
How do you understand that some actions are correct and others are wrong? And why is murder viewed so negatively? What about theft? And why does survival of the fittest cause such conflicting emotions among people? All this is determined by ethics and moral standards - but why?
22. Where does language come from?
When a baby is born, he apparently already has “room” for a new language. That is, the child is already initially programmed for language cognition. Why this is so is unknown.
23. Who are you?
Imagine having a brain transplant? Will you remain yourself or become a completely different person? Or will it be your twin? There are so many unanswered questions that science has not yet been able to understand.
24. What is death?
There is clinical death - a condition after which the victim can be brought back to life. There is also biological death, which is closely related to clinical death. No one knows where the line between them ends. This is a question that is closely related to the question “What is life?”
25. What happens after death?
Although this question relates more to theology and philosophy, science is constantly looking for evidence of life after death. But, unfortunately, so far nothing worthwhile has been found.
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In such a rapidly developing world, it seems that people have found answers to absolutely all questions. We are accustomed to the fact that even if we don’t know something, then science definitely knows everything.
But website collected questions that science has not been able to answer for many years.
18. Why does the giraffe have such a long neck?
Of course, a very reasonable answer would be that the giraffe needs such a neck to reach high-growing food. But scientists are in no hurry to accept this version as the only correct one. Therefore, this question is still open, and there is no official answer to it.
17. How many years can a person live?
No matter how strange it may sound, scientists and doctors called old age a disease. It is no longer taken for granted as a part of life. And in this case, we should be more concerned about the question not about what life expectancy will be, but about how to stay healthy.
16. Why do moths gather in the light?
This behavior of insects is one of the most common. And hardly any of us thought that there was no explanation for this phenomenon. Even though the moths die from the light, they still fly towards it. Some explained this by saying that insects fly at a certain angle to the light as their stimulus. But others do not agree with them, because since the advent of fire, all moths would have died long ago. So no one can name the real reason.
15. Why do cats purr?
Yes, yes, even such a simple, at first glance, phenomenon as the purring of cats, scientists cannot explain. Animals make such sounds at a variety of moments: when they are fed, when they are hungry, when they are scared. One suggestion is that it promotes bone and tendon healing. But this option does not answer the question of why cats purr in a variety of situations.
14. Why is yawning contagious?
We start yawning when we see another person yawning. Scientists have found that this demonstrates the ability to empathize and form emotional connections with others. But people suffering from schizophrenia and autism will not respond to another person's yawn. But scientists cannot figure out why such a connection is established through yawning.
13. How do body parts “realize” that they no longer need to grow?
It is now known that cell growth depends on a certain signal that stops the growth of the protein. But scientists still don’t know what kind of signal this is, how it is formed, what channels it goes through and what other processes it affects.
12. How do birds know where to fly?
We are with early childhood we wonder how migratory birds they will find out where to fly for the winter and where to return later. The only assumption that science puts forward in this regard is the influence of the Earth's magnetic field. At the moment this is the only option, but it has not been accepted as the correct answer to this question.
11. Why do placebos always work?
As you know, a placebo is a substance that does not have medicinal properties. When using it, everything is based on the fact that the person sincerely believes in the therapeutic effect of the pill. Scientists are still arguing about how placebos work and whether it is wise to take such a medicine.
10. What is at the bottom of the ocean?
This question may seem strange, but it has its place. After all, only 5% of the ocean floor has been studied. No one knows what is in the remaining 95%. And it seems that scientists are in no hurry to find out: according to them, it is much easier and faster to get to the Moon than to go down to the deepest part of the ocean.
9. Is it possible to travel in time?
For various reasons, we have all at least once thought that it would be nice to have a time machine. But it seemed to us that this was impossible. From a purely technical point of view, science tells us that travel to the future is possible. Only for this you need to accelerate a person to an incredibly high speed. But traveling into the past is still impossible.
8. Why are most people right-handed?
It is known that 9 out of 10 people will be right-handed. But for as long as 160 years, no one has been able to figure out why the majority of the planet’s inhabitants have a dominant right hand.
7. Why do we yawn?
Yes, many say that humans, like other vertebrates, yawn due to a lack of oxygen in the body. But this version was also not officially approved. Therefore, scientists cannot fully explain this phenomenon.
Text: Artyom Luchko
Science emerged out of the need to answer people's questions. And it seems that most of the complex phenomena have been studied far and wide, but “very little” remains - to understand the nature of dark matter, to understand the problem of quantum gravity, to solve the problem of the dimension of space/time, to understand what dark energy is (and several hundred more similar questions ). However, there are still seemingly simpler phenomena that scientists are unable to fully explain.
What is glass?
Nobel laureate Warren Anderson once said: “The deepest and most interesting of the unsolved problems in solid state theory lies in the nature of glass.” And although glass has been known to mankind for more than a millennium, scientists still do not understand the reason for its unique mechanical properties. From school lessons we remember that glass is a liquid, but is it so? Scientists do not know exactly what the nature of the transition between liquid or solid and glassy phases is and what physical processes lead to the basic properties of glass.
The process of glass formation cannot be explained using any of the current tools of solid state physics, many-body theory, or fluid theory. Briefly described, liquid molten glass, as it cools, gradually becomes more and more viscous until it becomes rigid. While during the formation of crystalline solids, such as graphite, the atoms instantly form the usual periodic structures.