10 scientific mysteries that we still can not decide

From the appearance of the person concerned, consciousness began to explore the world around them, constantly expanding horizons. But it turns out that many of these horizons or expand, found them even more distant horizons, which accounts for the long haul. So what? We get a genuine pleasure, learning something new. We are ready to gnaw granite, to get to the bottom of things. But some of the mysteries of science we can not solve. Maybe you can help?

The universe began with the Big Bang?

The Big Bang Theory for many years considered the most reliable, which explains the beginning of the universe. But is it really a hundred percent correct and the only answer?

"Big Bang" theory called one of the most violent of its opponents, Fred Hoyle. He thought that the universe was static and eternal - but his hypothesis quickly died. In 1929, Edwin Hubble proved that the universe is expanding. This was followed by new evidence for the Big Bang theory: in 1965 it was the existence of microwave background radiation, the afterglow of the Big Bang.

But there is one thing. Hubble measurement, made in 1929, were refuted in 1990. In fact, the universe expanded more slowly than predicted Big Bang theory. In response to this, Alan Guth has made some adjustments to the Big Bang theory. He said that the universe was expanding rapidly at first and then slow.

But critics say the Big Bang theory to prove this is impossible. Maybe we need a new way to determine the origin of the universe?

How to predict an earthquake?

Our understanding of the Earth's movement began to take shape recently. Only in 1912, Alfred Wegener came to the idea that the continents are in constant motion. In the 1960s, the US Navy said that the seabed was not as smooth as expected to this point - it consisted of mountain ranges.

Researchers concluded that the seabed is also exposed to volcanoes and earthquakes. This discovery led to the theory of plate tectonics, which explains the large-scale movement of the Earth's lithosphere. Now we know that earthquakes are born when two plates crawl at each other.

We were able to locate the places more than others prone to tectonic activity. But we still do not know exactly when an earthquake will occur. For example, scientists can predict what the Los Angeles earthquake will happen soon. This could mean any time from tomorrow until the next 30 years.

What causes ice ages?

We still do not know what causes ice ages. Milutin Milankovitch proposed a solution in 1920. He said that the earth receives different amounts of solar energy at different times because of how our planet moves. This leads to the appearance of glacial periods at regular intervals. At first the idea seemed Milankovitch correct, because the ice ages really comes in every 100 000 years.

But Milankovitch theory can not explain some of the serious irregularities in the scheme - for example, a period of 200 million years without a single ice age. New theories have focused on the greenhouse effect, but it raises more questions than it answers. Which led to fluctuations in the carbon dioxide that no people have not been? Scientists are scratching their heads, but the truth is no one knows.

Is there a missing link?

The missing link - a hypothetical evolutionary link between apes and humans. In 1912, Charles Dawson found a skull with a set of human and ape jaw on Piltdown Common near Lewis in England. In 41 years the scientific community to believe that we have found the missing link.

However, this unusual find was a fake, created by the British Museum zoologist named Hinton. What for? This was his revenge.

Hinton began working as a volunteer in the museum. When he asked about the salary, curator of paleontology Arthur Smith Woodward denied him. Therefore Hinton forged skull to undermine the authority of Woodward as a scientist. However, the plan did not work.

In 1956, William Strauss suggested that Neanderthal was our direct ancestor. However, new methods of dating fossils have shown that humans and Neanderthals lived at the same time and keep in touch. Jobs are still open.

Why abstract system of communication has appeared so late?

The earliest examples date back to the art as a by 35,000 years ago. However, the written language has developed only 7000 years ago, and mathematics took another 2,000 years.

Why was such a large gap between the first abstract drawings and the first communication system? Most likely, your brain first has to change. But how? Brain - such a complex structure, it can take several centuries, before we well understand how it works.

What are black holes?

The concept of black holes was first greeted with disbelief. When a physicist Sir Arthur Eddington first heard about them, he said: "I think there should be a law of nature, which does not allow that the star was behaving so strangely!". The first welcomed the black holes Oppenheimer in 1938. But Sir Arthur Eddington can understand, because the behavior of black holes counterintuitive. No one knows what happens inside a black hole. In the 1990s, scientists discovered the existence of supermassive black holes the size of a billion suns. They are usually located in the center of elliptical galaxies. whether they participated in the creation of these galaxies? We do not know, in actual fact. Even the black hole to us - a real mystery, because neither see nor touch them, we can not, as well as visit.

How old is the universe?

Nobody knows for sure. Answers range from 8 to 20 billion years old, but it is quite a large spread. The strange thing in this issue is that the universe may be younger than its oldest stars. Studies conducted in 1994 showed that the universe 8 billion years old, which means the oldest stars in the Milky Way older than the universe itself. Fortunately, the measurements carried out in 1999, refuted previous studies.

But their triumph was short-lived. Another study, conducted with the help of modern technology, has shown that the universe was 15% less, and therefore the 15% younger. According to this study, there are older stars of the universe itself. What are we doing wrong? Perhaps we do not understand the fundamental laws of physics?

Are there multiple universes?

The first concept of multiple universes proposed science fiction writer Jack Williamson in 1952. What inspired the physicist Hugh Everett. In 1957, he wrote a doctoral thesis on the topic of multiple universes. According to his model, each event creates a number of universes, which takes place every possible outcome of this event. John Wheeler, Everett's head, offered a different version. According to him, the universe expanded from time to time, and then compressed to the size of an atom. But some scientists have pointed out that the universe, apparently, not enough substance to collapse.

Stephen Hawking developed a theory, which states that there is an infinite number of universes with every possible future.

The only problem is that we can not verify these theories into practice.

What will be the end of the universe?

Some theories suggest that the universe will begin to contract at a certain point, until it reaches the size of an atom. Then there will be another big bang, the universe, and be reborn.

But there is another possibility. The universe can expand infinitely, pushing galaxies farther and farther apart. In the end, stars vyzhgut all its fuel, and there is nothing left.