Unsolved Problems

[austintorn@aol.com]

Solve or clarify some of these and maybe win a Nobel prize… (take your time…)

Unsolved Problems:

Quantum gravity and cosmology:

Quantum gravity

How can gravity and general relativity be realized as a fully consistent quantum field theory? Is string theory (M-theory) the correct approach? More pressing, how much experimental information can be extracted about physics near the Planck scale?

Black holes, Black hole information, and Black hole radiation

Do black holes produce thermal radiation, as expected on theoretical grounds? Does this radiation contain information about their inner structure, as suggested by Gauge-gravity duality, or not, as implied by Hawking's original calculation? If not, and black holes can evaporate away, what happens to the information stored in them? (Quantum mechanics does not allow information to be destroyed) Or does the radiation stop at some point leaving black hole remnants? Is there another way to probe their internal structure somehow, if such a structure even exists?

Extra dimensions

Does nature have more than four spacetime dimensions? If so, what is their size? Are dimensions a fundamental property of the universe or an emergent result of other physical laws? Can we experimentally "see" evidence of higher spatial dimensions?

Cosmic inflation

Is the theory of cosmic inflation correct, and if so, what are the details of this epoch? What is the hypothetical inflaton field giving rise to inflation? If inflation happened at one point, is it self-sustaining through inflation of quantum-mechanical fluctuations, and thus ongoing in some impossibly distant place?

Multiple universes

Are there physical reasons to expect other universes that are fundamentally non-observable? For instance: Are there quantum mechanical "alternative histories"? Are there "other" universes with physical laws resulting from alternate ways of breaking the apparent symmetries of physical forces at high energies, possibly incredibly far away due to cosmic inflation? Is the use of the anthropic principle to resolve global cosmological dilemmas justified?


High energy physics:

Higgs mechanism

Does the Higgs particle exist? What if it does not?

Hierarchy problem

Why is gravity such a weak force? It becomes strong for particles only at the Planck scale, around 1019 GeV, much above the electroweak scale (100 GeV, the energy scale dominating physics at low energies). Why are these scales so different from each other? What prevents quantities at the electroweak scale, such as the Higgs boson mass, from getting quantum corrections of order of the Planck scale? Is the solution supersymmetry, extra dimensions, or just anthropic fine-tuning?

Island of stability

What is the heaviest possible stable or metastable atom?

Magnetic monopoles

Do particles that carry "magnetic charge" exist?

Proton decay and unification

How do we unify the three different quantum mechanical fundamental interactions of quantum field theory? As the lightest baryon, are protons absolutely stable? If not, then what is the proton's half-life?

Supersymmetry

Is spacetime supersymmetry realized in nature? If so, what is the mechanism of supersymmetry breaking? Does supersymmetry stabilize the electroweak scale, preventing high quantum corrections? Does the lightest supersymmetric particle comprise dark matter?


Other problems:

Consciousness

Is a complete understanding of particle physics sufficient to fully understand consciousness?

Quantum mechanics in the correspondence limit

Is there a preferred interpretation of quantum mechanics? How does the quantum description of reality, which includes elements such as the superposition of states and wavefunction collapse, give rise to the reality we perceive?

Physical information

Are there physical phenomena, such as black holes or wave function collapse, which irrevocably destroy information about their prior states?

Theory of everything

Is there a theory which explains the values of all fundamental physical constants?[1] Do "fundamental physical constants" vary over time? Is there a theory which explains why the gauge groups of the standard model are as they are, why observed space-time has 3+1 dimensions, and why all laws of physics are as they are?


Empirical phenomena lacking clear scientific explanation:

Cosmology and high energy physics
Accelerating universe and the Cosmological constant

Why doesn't the zero-point energy of the vacuum cause a large cosmological constant? What cancels it out? Is a non-total cancellation of the cosmological constant responsible for the observed accelerated expansion (deSitter phase) of the Universe? If it is, why is the energy density of the cosmological constant of the same magnitude as the density of matter at present when the two evolve quite differently over time; could it be simply that we are observing at exactly the right time? Or is the nature of the dark energy driving this acceleration differently?

Baryon asymmetry

Why is there far more matter than antimatter in the observable universe?

Dark matter

What is dark matter?[2] Is it related to supersymmetry? Do the phenomena attributed to dark matter point not to some form of matter but actually to an extension of gravity?

Electroweak symmetry breaking

What is the mechanism responsible for breaking the electroweak gauge symmetry, giving mass to the W and Z bosons? Is it the simple Higgs mechanism of the Standard Model,[3] or does nature make use of strong dynamics in breaking electroweak symmetry, as proposed by Technicolor?

Entropy (arrow of time)

Why did the universe have such low entropy in the past, resulting in the distinction between past and future and the second law of thermodynamics?

Neutrino mass

What is the mechanism responsible for generating neutrino masses? Is the neutrino its own antiparticle? Or could it be an antiparticle that simply cannot join and annihilate with a normal particle because of its irregular state?

Mass/Weight ratio of elementary particles

According to General Relativity the ratio of mass to weight of all elementary particles is the same. However, there is no experimental confirmation for many particles. In particular, we do not know what the weight of a macroscopic lump of antimatter of known mass would be.

Proton Spin Crisis

As initially measured by the European Muon Collaboration, the three main ("valence") quarks of the proton account for about 12% of its total spin. Can the gluons that bind the quarks together, as well as the "sea" of quark pairs that are continually being created and annihilating, properly account for the rest of it?

Quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in the non-perturbative regime

The equations of QCD remain unsolved at energy scales relevant for describing atomic nuclei, and only mainly numerical approaches seem to begin to give answers at this limit. How does QCD give rise to the physics of nuclei and nuclear constituents?

Strong CP problem and axions
Why is the strong nuclear interaction invariant to parity and charge conjugation? Is Peccei-Quinn theory the solution to this problem?


Astronomy:

Accretion disc jets

Why do the accretion discs surrounding certain astronomical objects, such as the nuclei of active galaxies, emit relativistic jets along their polar axes? Why are there Quasi-Periodic Oscillations in many accretion discs? Why does the period of these oscillations scale as the inverse of the mass of the central object. Why are there sometimes overtones, and why do these appear at different frequency ratios in different objects?

Corona heating problem

Why is the Sun's Corona (atmosphere layer) so much hotter than the Sun's surface?

Gamma ray bursts (short duration)

How do these short-duration high-intensity bursts originate?


Observational anomalies:

Hipparcos anomaly: How far away are the Pleiades, exactly?

Pioneer anomaly[2]: What causes the apparent residual sunward acceleration of the Pioneer spacecraft?

Flyby anomaly: Why is the observed energy of satellites flying by earth different by a minute amount from the value predicted by theory?

Galaxy rotation problem: Is dark matter responsible for differences in observed and theoretical speed of stars revolving around the center of galaxies, or is it something else?

Supernovae: What is the exact mechanism by which an implosion of a dying star becomes an explosion?

Ultra-high-energy cosmic ray
Why is it that some cosmic rays appear to possess energies that are impossibly high (the so called Oh-My-God particle), given that there are no sufficiently energetic cosmic ray sources near the Earth? Why is it that (apparently) some cosmic rays emitted by distant sources have energies above the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit?

Condensed matter physics
Amorphous solids
What is the nature of the phase transition between a fluid or regular solid and a glassy phase? What are the physical processes giving rise to the general properties of glasses?

Cold fusion
What is the explanation for the controversial reports of excess heat, radiation and transmutations?

High-temperature superconductors
What is the mechanism that causes certain materials to exhibit superconductivity at temperatures much higher than around 50 Kelvin?

Sonoluminescence
What causes the emission of short bursts of light from imploding bubbles in a liquid when excited by sound?

Turbulence
Is it possible to make a theoretical model to describe the statistics of a turbulent flow (in particular, its internal structures)?] Also, under what conditions do smooth solutions to the Navier-Stokes equations exist?

[dleviwing]

How can gravity and general relativity be realized as a fully consistent quantum field theory?

It can’t as long as Relativity is taught as both subjective and objective. Quantum Physics is purely objective and can easily adopt to the objective reality of Relativity.

Is string theory (M-theory) the correct approach?

NO

More pressing, how much experimental information can be extracted about physics near the Planck scale?

This question is meaningless!

Do black holes produce thermal radiation, as expected on theoretical grounds? Does this radiation contain information about their inner structure, as suggested by Gauge-gravity duality, or not, as implied by Hawking's original calculation? If not, and black holes can evaporate away, what happens to the information stored in them? (Quantum mechanics does not allow information to be destroyed) Or does the radiation stop at some point leaving black hole remnants? Is there another way to probe their internal structure somehow, if such a structure even exists?

Black holes are not recording devices and thus any information that can be known about an object before entering a black hole will be lost or deleted by the black hole.

The weakest points of all objects spinning as fast as black holes are at the axes of the objects and thus radiation along with particle propagation will occur at the axes of the black holes; we call them JETS. It is quite likely that black holes are the origins of the substance that produce the formation of galaxies.

Does nature have more than four spacetime dimensions? If so, what is their size? Are dimensions a fundamental property of the universe or an emergent result of other physical laws? Can we experimentally "see" evidence of higher spatial dimensions?

There are only 3 spatial dimensions in nature. Time is not a spatial dimension. Don’t confuse dimensions of mathematics with the realities of physical dimensions that depict spatial distances.

All your questions that are meaningful can be answered with a simple understanding of the fundamental physical properties of a fundamental physical entity. The problem here is that in order to answer all of your questions it will require a rather lengthy book. Why don’t you try placing your questions in their own posts or threads; most of them have already been addressed throughout the forums. You also need to get rid of the alligators in your swamp of questions; dark matter, extra dimensions, multiverses and so on.

[austintorn@aol.com]

You also need to get rid of the alligators in your swamp of questions; dark matter, extra dimensions, multiverses and so on.

Luckily, these questions were not mine, but what I found somewhere. Guess those guys went somewhat overboard in making some of their "problems" our problems. Many seem OK. Speculations must have crept into the base list, like the extra dimensions.

[dleviwing]

I think Scientific American or Discovery magazine publishes a list each year but I haven’t read them since the main stream science magazines abandoned common sense for more magazine sales.

[David Maes]

I sometimes read Nature or Science.
Or other magazines.

It might indeed be better to read them with a sceptic eye.
But maybe it might be better than reading nothing (well meaned).

I agree education is indeed still the best way to know about things.

I'm not an engineer from education like you (that's a pitty); but I'm interested in the truth.

Personally, I think it's a pitty you don't read sometimes in a scientific magazine with your sceptic eye.

I don't want to make publicity for Nature, but I just want to give an example.

You don't only have Nature, you also have Nature Physics, Nature Photonics, Nature Neurology, Nature Genetics, ......

OK, they are still magazines, but I think they are very professional.
They are often doctors and professors.

You are right; I shouldn't just believe something because a doctor or professor just said it.

But I can't do research myself; I also didn't study those things; but I still want to know the truth;
so I try to have as much sources and as reliable as possible.

[David Maes]

Dave,

That's what I find the hard part; if I want to know something about physics for example, then I can't rely on myself cause I'm not a physicist.

So if I want to know something about physics, then I have to rely on what a physicist says. The only problem is, how can I be sure that this physicist tells me the truth?

I think we will never know.

You say science magazines publish their stories in a way that they have more sales.
Well; I have a theory; in life, it's all about the money.
I think no scientist will ever publish anything if he can't earn any money with it.
That's unfortunate, cause this makes those scientists prejudiced, not objective.

For example, when a company is sponsor for a scientist, then I think this scientist will never publish results which count against the company which is his sponsor.

I also think that a science magazine will never publish things which would count against their readers, i.e. the science community. For example if the science community is against homoeopathy, then the science magazine will only publish things which count against the homoeopaths.
And why would the science community be against the homoeopaths?
Well, that's rather simple; each time someone goes to a homeopath, he doesn't go to a scientist, so scientists lose money in that case.

The question is, if someone really wants to know whether homoeopathy works or doesn't work, how can he ever know this in a world where everything is about the money??

[austintorn@aol.com]

The truth still surfaces. One cannot just claim cold fusion, for example, without other scientists trying to duplicate it and either proving it or disproving it. It's hard to put something over on the world of science.

[dleviwing]

Hi David;
I think it is safer to stay with medical doctors that have participated in a formal medical education. I just don’t like the idea of having to pay the middleman between the licensed drug dealer and the drug user.

Most scientist are extremely conscious of their reputations and strive to be professional in all they do; like any profession though, there are those who seek only fame and fortune regardless to the cost of their reputation. It is disappointing that we cannot separate science from the human nature of the scientist; I keep trying though. Curing the misconceptions, ignorance, and out right fabrications is a good place to start. If we do that then the “Unsolved Problems” simply become “Unsolved Questions”.

When you read science it’s best to apply a slight variation to the philosophy: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t”; “If it sounds too bizarre to be right, it’s probably wrong”. In science, don’t believe anything that has not been tested and retested several time and by several methods.

[Unreal Zelta]

Hi David;
I think it is safer to stay with medical doctors that have participated in a formal medical education. I just don’t like the idea of having to pay the middleman between the licensed drug dealer and the drug user.

Most scientist are extremely conscious of their reputations and strive to be professional in all they do; like any profession though, there are those who seek only fame and fortune regardless to the cost of their reputation. It is disappointing that we cannot separate science from the human nature of the scientist; I keep trying though. Curing the misconceptions, ignorance, and out right fabrications is a good place to start. If we do that then the “Unsolved Problems” simply become “Unsolved Questions”.

When you read science it’s best to apply a slight variation to the philosophy: “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably isn’t”; “If it sounds too bizarre to be right, it’s probably wrong”. In science, don’t believe anything that has not been tested and retested several time and by several methods.

A true empiricist you are Dave.

regards

Zelta

[AntonioLao]

Solve or clarify some of these

Did you mention cold fusion as one of these unsolved problems? If not then would solving them also solve cold fusion? What I think, maybe solving cold fusion would in turn solves all of them?