Lets Talk About Things Science Cannot Explain

LordOfWizards said:
I am fascinated by this thread so far. I'd like you all to know about my Anti-Gravity device: Toast always lands buttered side down, and cats always land on their feet, so strap a piece of toast buttered side up to the bottom of a cat, and there you have it! Anti-Gravity! (or maybe the cat would just keep spinning in the air?) :D
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You should patent it, you'd make millions. it would be very at popular parties .:D
 
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Interesting idea, might be right but it's a deduction not a true discovery.
 
I'd like to know where the spare earbuds for my earphones go. I'd like to know why it's apparently so easy to understand the universe - as in, why is any of it explicable at all?

I'd also like to know why, when I don't eat Chocolate I don't lose weight but when I just look at it, my hips expand at the speed of sound. I'd also like to know why my mate ned can eat as much as he likes without getting all fat, the git.

Finally, I'd like to know why gravity and QM can't be unified when both give uncannily accurate descriptions of the universe.
 
Cathbad said:
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Camelot! .......... Camelot! ............Camelot(s)!
~Shrugs~ "It's only a model."

There's a paragraph in there when he starts to talk about "quantum gravity" (a dubious concept in itself). Then he claims from the same source "there is a minimum length below which space does not exist." What he's left out is that we cannot possibly hope to measure such things (I believe he is alluding to the Planck scale) with our current technology, and not likely anything in the near future, and in fact Science does not know why gravity exists. (Another thing science can not explain, but only measure).
 
@LordOfWizards there is definitely a theory beyond QM AND General Relativity. We just don't have a decent candidate for it right now. As it stands, most physicists in the right part of the field agree that there is 'nothing' that exists in a discrete fashion at lengths shorter than the Planck length. It's not so much that there's nothing, there's just nothing discrete. Or so our best mathematical models imply at this point. I think the paper is a nice attempt to seek out an alternative to a system that requires a singularity (and nature abhors singularities) in order for it to work but it is likely to pass by as little more than a footnote in our overall explorations of this part of physics.

As for your old cellphones...I suspect they're hiding out inside my lost socks.
 
There are infinite universes much, much, smaller than this one. So far they are too small to find, that's all, but science should keep looking.
There are many strange unexplainable laws. If you swipe a big handful of napkins at McDonalds - you WILL spill more stuff that needs wiping up.
 
Stewart Hotston said:
@LordOfWizards there is definitely a theory beyond QM AND General Relativity.
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Sure! I only said that Quantum gravity was a "dubious concept" (meaning hard to prove). And I Definitely never said anything to refute General relativity. Einstein is one of my all time heroes. Relativity is a (very accurate) mathematical model of how gravity behaves. It doesn't explain why gravity exists.
 
I think we have reasonable grounds for why each of the four forces exist in a proximate sense (i.e. gravity is how the fabric of spacetime relates to itself, hence why it's the weakest force when it comes to component elements but, at the scale of the visible universe is the dominating force).

However, why in an ultimate sense? Not at all, but then I don't think good science asks for the 'meaning' of why things are, it's simply trying to describe what it encounters and explain how the mechanisms of those experiences function. It's a small t truth rather than a big t truth.

For both QM and GR, they are incomplete theories. It used to be dismissed that they covered different areas or that their influence wasn't meaningful at the human scale (a lazy way to say, I'm frying eggs over here, so stop bothering me unless it means I can't fry eggs anymore). However the fact that we can point to an increasingly large set of macro-quantum effects (such as birds navigational systems, human smell to name my favourite two) and that we now know that mass is 'communicated' via fundamental particles means that the systems must, eventually, give way to a more complete theory that can account for the phenomena that both of these describe in their individual spheres.

as for things science can't explain - see this as to just one thing science will never explain:
 
Cathbad said:
I remember seeing this when it was first shown, many years ago! (Yeah, I'm old...) :LOL:
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Yes, but are you your own Grandpa? :barefoot:

As to whether science can explain why things happen, there are I'm quite sure, hundreds if not thousands of examples. Here's one: Sorry, um, 4:
Why is the sky blue?

Why do cats purr?

Why are most trees green?

And here's one I've often wondered: Why do the planets rotate in the same plane?
answer from here:

Rings and disks are common in astronomy. When a cloud collapses, the conservation of angular momentum amplifies any initial tiny spin of the cloud. As the cloud spins faster and faster, it collapses into a disk, which is the maximal balance between gravitational collapse and centrifugal force created by rapid spin. The result is the coplanar planets, the thin disks of spiral galaxies, and the accretion disks around black holes
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Stewart Hotston said:
However the fact that we can point to an increasingly large set of macro-quantum effects (such as birds navigational systems, human smell to name my favourite two)
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Do you think maybe that "an increasingly large set of macroscopic world effects that have their source in quantum, i.e. microscopic world effects" might be a better way of putting it? Just a thought.
 
Stephen Palmer said:
Do you think maybe that "an increasingly large set of macroscopic world effects that have their source in quantum, i.e. microscopic world effects" might be a better way of putting it? Just a thought.
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From here:
"At the top of your nasal passages behind your nose, there is a patch of special neurons about the size of a postage stamp. These neurons are unique in that they are out in the open where they can come into contact with the air. They have hair-like projections called cilia that increase their surface area. An odor molecule binds to these cilia to trigger the neuron and cause you to perceive a smell."

Could someone explain to me how human's sense of smell is due to anything in the Quantum science world? (It seems to me it is all about molecules interacting with neurons), and with the birds, I'm not clear as to which you are referring: either migratory or sensory (i.e why do they migrate, why do they fly in formations or flocks, or some internal directional sensory capability). Again, I would be very interested to hear about how Quantum theory explains any of those things.

Please don't get me wrong, I LOVE science, and I love learning new things and the constant sense of wonder and awe I get from studying the world and the cosmos. I just don't want to miss anything and not have a complete picture of what science agrees upon.
 
Well, I was just curious as what the reply would be - no offence intended. My experience (as a physicist and skeptic) is that far too many people, mostly hippies and assorted sundries, use "quantum" to explain stuff that either they don't understand or isn't yet understood. (I don't put you in that bracket.) The other reason I replied was that when I was researching for No Grave For A Fox I stumbled upon some fascinating recent discoveries about magneto-reception, one explanation of which relates to the spin on an electron. But, anyway… quantum microscopic, causal macroscopic ;)
 
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