Okay, this might be a little IMHO, but I figured their might be a factual answer.
What are some of the greatest mysteries in science? I’m not talking about ufo’s or anything of that sort, I’m talking about things that make scientists go “what the?”.
Example:
Dark Energy, age of the universe, etc.
Also, a quick question: Is the big bang a theory, or is it still trying to be one? I know that evolution is a scientific theory, (basically a fact), but for the life of me I don’t know for sure if TBB is a scientific theory (FWIW- I think it is).
TBB is basically the major structure around which cosmologist views the universe’s evolution. It has changed since its inception (inflation, dark energy) but the overall idea is pretty much accepted as the basis for further research.
All our scientific knowledge ends where a black hole begins.
Its kinda like death. You have an idea what its like but you cant be totally sure until you are really dead and even then you cant tell anyobe about it afterwards.
Scientist have a pretty good idea what it is, but the only way to find out is to go in and once youre in, you cant get out.
According to Discover Magazine–not the finest science source, I’ll freely admit–there seems to be a bit of a problem explaining how water is transported to the tops of trees.
Not the “greatest” mystery of science, I’m sure, but it does seem a little bit unusual that such a commonly noted phenomenon is still not fully understood.
What’s really going on at the bottom of the sea. What’s at the bottom of the ice in Antarctica. What the surface of Venus is really like. Is there ever going to be a Unified Theory of Everything.
http://helio.estec.esa.nl/intermarsnet/redreport/node10.html
If evolution is true and all life eveolved from one organism, How did this organism develop? (ie How did a soup of protiens and amino acids combine on their own to create the blueprint for life?)
I think it is safe to say that the greatest mystery in physics is how to combine quantum mechanics and gravity. Is the big bang accepted or just a theory? There is less at issue there than you think. There is in science nothing that is known as a fact. They are all theories with more or less acceptance. The big bang explains a lot so it is accepted. For the time being, unless something better comes along. No one is looking for something better, so that could take a while. Evolution, sometimes derided as “just a theory” is as well accepted as anything in biology. That doesn’t mean there isn’t some niggling around the edges. Only in mathematics can there be a final resolution. Everything the Greek mathematicians did 25 centuries ago is still accepted and some of it is still taught with the same proofs. The greatest unresolved mystery in mathematics is the Riemann hypothesis, although there certainly remain many other unsolved problem. In computer science, the biggest unresolved mystery is P = NP? I will let the chemists answer for themselves, since I know little about it.
To those who mentioned how life originally began: I thought there was an experiment conducted where a single-celled organism was created from nothing but a ‘primordial goo’ by running electrical current through it. A) Does anyone know what I’m talking about and B) Would that be answer enough to that question, or is the real question ‘Why did that experiment work?’
I think it simply showed that inert materials could be made to form amino acids. But as far as I know amino acids do not equate to life, or even DNA. You need for them to get together and replicate, which I don’t think the experiment showed.
That’s a tricky one I think. How would someone go about trying to study a “multiverse”? I’m not saying it’s impossible, and I am a fountain of ignorance when it comes to strictly scientific matters, but I can’t envision how you would do this.
I know that a theory is about as good as you are going to get and that there is nothing known as fact. I didn’t mean to imply the “creationist” tactic of “just a theory”. I was actually wondering if it was, in fact, a theory. I’m not to well versed on the big bang, so I honestly don’t know (I’m not aware of anything competing with TBB, but I could have sworn there was-and no, I’m not talking about ID or anything of that sort). As I said in the OP, I believe the big bang is at theory status.
Not quite. In fact, for a sufficiently large Black Hole, you could pass the event horizon and not even know you had done it. Science falls to pieces at the singlarity at the center of a Black Hole but i think they can reasonably describe life inside the Event Horizon but before the Singularity.
A multiverse as a possibility is one interpretation of some of the things we see when looking at Quantum Mechanics. Some experiments seem to suggest that a particle does not take a defined path through space/time but rather travles all possible paths through space/time until measured and forced to pick a position/momentum (known only within the bounds of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle). Sounds strange but scientists have already built very simple Quatum Computers that use this very thing to work.
Some say that the implication of this is that a Universe exists for every possible choice of every particle there ever was…essentially an infinite number of Universes. While it can’t be rejected out of hand I think most scientists don’t give it much serious thought. The implications of such a thing boggle the mind (even the mind of someone used to QM). Additionally, you can never test for or prove such a thing making it a bit of a dead subject for a scientist. If you can’t test for something then saying the Universe pre-Big Bang (don’t bother telling me it’s a meaningless concept) was really a ball of peanut butter is as reasonable as a multiverse theory (afterall you can’t prove it wasn’t!).
As to the OP didn’t the flight of a Bumble Bee and a Sinker (pitch in baseball) baffle them?
)