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Asking the Right Questions

Entry 1099, on 2009-10-14 at 22:33:41 (Rating 2, Science)

Over a year ago I wrote a blog entry titled "what do we know?" where I discussed various scientific mysteries which we have no definite answers for. Well we still don't have answers for those but, after reading an article from New Scientist titled "13 Things Sent to Try Us" I realise we know even less that I previously suspected.

The mysteries mentioned in that article were: the axis of evil (an odd alignment of hot and cold spots in the cosmic microwave background), dark flow (the observation that some galaxies are moving in an unexpected direction due to some unknown force), prehistoric hothouse (the unexplained anomalies in temperature in the eocene period), fly-by anomalies (extra speed various spacecraft have gained while flying past the Earth), hybrid life (the observation that some animal species seem to be formed when two separate species merged in the past), Morgellons disease (a medical condition which may or may not exist), the bloop (an unexplained noise picked up by sonar), antimatter mystery (the question about why there seems to be so much more matter than antimatter in our universe), the lithium problem (the apparently anomalous amount of different lithium isotopes which differs from the prediction of the big bang), MAGIC results (the observation suggesting different wavelengths of light travel at different speeds which is not predicted by relativity), the elusive monopole (the lack of a discovery of the magnetic monopole), noise from the edge of the universe (strange "noise" which might support the idea that reality is generated through the holographic principle), and the nocebo effect (the link between the mind and negative physical effects on the body, including death).

There are various hypotheses to explain these mysteries but nothing that is so compelling that it is widely accepted and some of which are really only vague ideas that might indicate a direction that research on the topic should take. I would also have to admit that some are so odd I'm not even sure I fully understand the implications, especially the "holographic principle". That's something I want to do some research on!

Obviously some of these effects are far more mysterious than others. The nocebo effect, for example, doesn't seem like a great mystery to me although the exact mechanism involved is unknown and could be very significant if it was ever fully understood.

The most interesting to me are the physics/cosmological mysteries. Maybe many of these effects (both those mentioned here and others I have discussed in other entries) are related and many of these mysteries might be resolved when (or if) we finally create a unified theory of physics to replace quantum theory and relativity.

One which is particularly intriguing is the dark flow. A possible explanation for this is that the galaxies are flowing towards another universe which has a boundary with our universe in the direction the galaxies are going. I am increasingly persuaded by multiverse theories and this would appear to fit in with that idea. Unfortunately there is no way I can see that we could ever know what is beyond the boundary of the universe where light hasn't reached us yet because that border is shrinking and it appears impossible to ever gather information about what is beyond it.

Multiverse theories might also fit in with the inflationary universe theory and would also explain the fine tuned nature of the constants of our universe, which is one of the most puzzling things in modern cosmology.

These are big questions and it might appear that science really hasn't got a clue what's going on but that is a bit misleading. At least science knows enough to know what the questions are. Compare that with pseudoscience, religion, and most philosophy. They aren't even asking the right questions!

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