Science a GoGo's Home Page Forums General Discussion General Science Discussion Forum 13 things that do not make sense

Interesting read- although a bit dated.

http://space.newscientist.com/article/mg18524911.600-13-things-that-do-not-make-sense.html

1 The placebo effect
2 The horizon problem
?A variation in the speed of light could solve the problem, but this too is impotent in the face of the question 'why?'?

3 Ultra-energetic cosmic rays
?One possibility is that there is something wrong with the Akeno results. Another is that Einstein was wrong? -Umm, difficult choice.

4 Belfast homeopathy results
?If the results turn out to be real, the implications are profound. We may have to rewrite physics and chemistry?

5 Dark matter
- As Dan posted, this may be the collapse of matter in small regions of space.
6 Viking's methane
?Something on Mars is ingesting nutrients, metabolising them and then belching out radioactive methane?

7 Tetraneutrons
8 The Pioneer anomaly
9 Dark energy
10 The Kuiper cliff
11 The Wow signal
?It was either a powerful astronomical event - or an advanced alien civilisation beaming out a signal? - or bleedover from a Radio Ham

12 Not-so-constant constants
13 Cold fusion
?Cold fusion would make the world's energy problems melt away. No wonder the Department of Energy is interested? - and the US Department of Defence no doubt.

Blacknad.

Why would the placebo effect surprise anyone.

Most people spend the majority of their time engaged in self-deception.

If they didn't ... would they stand for the last 10,000 years of almost constant nonsense punctuated by a small number of intellectual successes?

Hehe, theres a lot of interesting questions above. They could keep some of us going for weeks.
I wonder if the Horizon problem could be simplified?
Might it be possible to compare 'the Big Bang' to a hand grenade? A circle of shrapnel is made, after a grenade explodes.
The furthest 'thrown' bits of shrapnel, are found on the outer edge of the circle because they flew faster, and therefore further. Poor analogy I know, but even a Big Bang explosion cannot be absolutely equal at every point in space, can it?

Mike Kremer.

I find it interesting that as the universe expands the distant objects must be moving faster. What happens once these objects rech the speed of light? Can anything be moving beyond them? Are they moving faster than the speed of light? Is it a question that doesn't make sense?

Terry, interesting points.
Once objects reach the speed of light (relative to each other) they can't 'see' each other - they cease to have any direct physical influence upon each other; yet, an observer midway between them (in terms of both position and relative velocity) would be able to see objects beyond them receding at even greater velocities.

The objects aren't actually moving through space faster than light. Space is 'stretching', and so causing objects sufficiently remote from each other to separate at greater than light velocity. The laws of nature are still intact.

http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mystery_monday_040524.html
_________

Re: 2. The Horizon Problem

"OUR universe appears to be unfathomably uniform. Look across space from one edge of the visible universe to the other, and you'll see that the microwave background radiation filling the cosmos is at the same temperature everywhere. That may not seem surprising until you consider that the two edges are nearly 28 billion light years apart and our universe is only 14 billion years old.

Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, so there is no way heat radiation could have travelled between the two horizons to even out the hot and cold spots created in the big bang and leave the thermal equilibrium we see now."

- There's a fallacy in that. It implies that the contents of the Big Bang were thrown from an explosion into something. They weren't. At the instant of the Big Bang, the space-time continuum began to expand. It makes no more sense to speak of it expanding into something than it does to speak of something happening before it. The "heat radiation" existed in every part of the early, miniscule universe. As the universe expanded, the energy wavelength also expanded; the energy was spread thinly, i.e., the universe cooled. The energy still occupies the same space, but that original miniscule space has stretched (somewhat!), to an estimated 156 billion light years.

There are, evidently, problems to be resolved in the theory in order to account for the exact current distribution of matter/energy, but the problem is not that of understanding how the background radiation happens to be universal.
_________

Mike.
"Might it be possible to compare 'the Big Bang' to a hand grenade?"

The above is why 'explosion' doesn't apply.

TNZ wrote:
"I find it interesting that as the universe expands the distant objects must be moving faster. What happens once these objects rech the speed of light?"

Your question contains a mistaken assumption ... the objects are not moving (faster and faster or otherwise). Rather space is expanding and other objects, essentially unmoving, are being carried along with it much like a boat standing-still in relationship to the current but the moving current moves it with respect to the beach.

The movement is apparent to us as we are, in essence, that beach. And when the object, relative to us, moves fast enough, or far enough (not sure which without looking it up), it disappears over the horizon never to be seen again.

Note to all:

The latest issue of Astronomy Magazine has a great section on the most common misunderstandings about cosmology. The above being one of them.

The so-called Big Bang was not an explosion of stuff. It was the creation of space-time.

Thanks guys.

1. The placebo effect.

I'd take a guess that endomorphine was active in the brain during the placebo tests as a natural response to the pain, and was contributing significantly to the pain relief until the naxolone blocked it.

I've got some time to look over Blacknad's list now and I can quickly dismiss the first two:

1 The placebo effect
2 The horizon problem
The placebo effect is well documented medically and surprises no one in medicine. The horizon problem really does not exist in physics if one accepts that inflation took place which nearly everyone does.

3. Ultra-energetic cosmic rays
I will grant there are likely a few exceptions to the rule not yet accounted for but this problem appears to no longer exist now that we more fully understand the affect of super novae shock waves and magnetic fields.

4. Homeopathy.
See #1. It is pure unadulterated nonsense.

5. Dark Matter
Dark matter is different from what was described in my earlier post. Dark matter seems almost undoubtedly to be axions.

6. Viking Methane
Of course there's life there. It is a planet isn't it? Every planet we have ever visited has life on it so why should Mars be any different? <g>

7. Tetraneutrons.
I'm totally clueless. I hope it is something really weird as that will help spur new research.

8. Pioneer Anomaly
See my answer to #7.

9. Dark Energy
This is what my previous article was discussing. I think it will just come down to being an intrinsic property of space-time. Which is very exciting.

10. Kuiper Cliff
Why not another planet? Or for that matter a failed star. And if not there now ... perhaps there in the past but swept away by a close encounter with another star.

11. Wow Signal
I hope it was an intelligent life form.

12. Not so constant constants
I can't believe anyone truly believes any of the constants are. That is just to comforting and things that are comforting to humans are always wrong. Perhaps Pi but I wouldn't even bet on that.

13. Cold Fusion
Bring me a bottle of Chimay. Hope springs eternal in those that want something for nothing.

The reason it is nonsense has nothing to do with "accepted theory." It has to do with the fact that you just can't fuse deuterium, or anything else, and not get gobs of perfectly obvious neutrons.

DA said:
"The placebo effect is well documented medically and surprises no one in medicine."

Certainly, but the event of interest wasn't the placebo effect; that's ancient history. It was that when naxolon blocked the morphine receptors, even though no morphine (only saline) had been administered, pain was experienced.

Still no surprise. Endorphins, morphine, no difference.

No, as you say, no surprise. Is New Scientist noted for its tendency to sensationalise and misinform? I've never read it, so I wouldn't know.

I think I would describe it as a literary device useful for getting the public to pay attention to things that otherwise they might ignore.

Thanks Dan.

And I did mean to put my comment against the Dark Energy and not Dark Matter.

Black.