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- A fun part about science is the discovery of new things. But, it all starts with what you don't know. It is the mysteries that are to be solved. The problems to be understood. And, it usually means you have to know more, have better technology, invent new knowledge methods, (Was math invented or discovered?). It involves working on the frontier of something new.
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---------------- Here are a dozen problems for you to think about:
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- Astronomers can see galaxies from their light that has traveled 13,800,000,000 lightyears. Because the universe is expanding at a velocity of 47,000 mph for every million light-years of distance. The greater the distance the faster the rate of expansion. Therefore, those galaxies that we see today are actually 46,000,000,000 lightyears away. That means the "observable universe" is 92,000,000,000 lightyears across. How much bigger, beyond what we can observe, is a mystery. It is bigger than we know for sure.
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– If we assume the Universe has been expanding at a constant rate after Cosmic Inflation the Hubble’s Law (Ho) says the Universe has been expanding at 47,000 miles per hour per million lightyears. If galaxies were 2 million lightyears apart they would be receding from each other at 94,000 miles per hour. If they were 1 billion lightyears apart the recession rate would be 47,000,000 miles per hour, because there is a lot more expanding space between them.
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- The reciprocal of his expansion rate will give the age of the Universe. If the 47,000 mph is constant or a correct average rate then:
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-------------------------- 1 / Ho = 1 / 47,000 miles per hour per million light years.
-------------------------- 5.88*10^12 miles per lightyear
-------------------------- 8,760 hours per year.
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------------------------- (10^6 * 5.88*10^12) / (47*10^3 * 8.76^10^3)
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-------------------------- 14 .8 billion years.
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- To explain why the entire universe is homogeneous, looks the same regardless of which direction you look, and, why opposite locations could be the same when it is impossible for light to have traveled between them, the answer given is " cosmic inflation". The universe in the very beginning expanded faster than the speed of light. Space expanded by factor of 10 ^78 in a brief instant of 10^- 36 seconds. ( See review number 849)
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- What force caused this expansion? Initially the universe was only compacted energy. As expansion and cooling occurred matter condensed out of the energy. Both matter and energy density resulted in the attractive force of gravity. Yet, opposing this attractive force is a repulsive force continuing to drive this expansion. Today, whatever this force is, it is dominant over gravity, and, the rate of universe expansion is actually accelerating. Called "dark energy" this repulsive force is 73% of the total mass – energy in the universe.
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- Matter represents the 27% of the remaining mass – energy density. But only 4% of this remaining matter can be detected with its interaction with light. 23% of the mass- energy is "dark matter".
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- When matter condensed out of energy physics tells us that the equal amounts of matter and antimatter were created. If they were ever to come together they annihilate each other converting back to energy again. So, why is there today more matter left over ? Where is equal amount of antimatter today? If there is an imbalance of matter over antimatter in its creation, what caused it? It is a problem yet to be solved.
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- When the universe expanded in the beginning there were many phase transitions that occurred. When matter was created gravity was created. Sone thereafter the transitions created a strong nuclear force that began holding protons and neutrons together. Then, the weak nuclear force that causes neutrons to decay. Then, the electromagnetic force that holds electrons and protons together to form neutral atoms. These last three forces have force carriers the “W and Z” bosons, gluons, and photons. But we have never discovered a force carrier for gravity. It has a name “graviton“. But, we have never found it. It remains a problem to be solved.
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- In the 400 lightyears diameter volume around our Sun the average density is 0.05 atoms per cubic centimeter. Our Milky Way has an average density of 0.5 atoms per cubic centimeter. Why is the space around our solar system 10 times less dense than average? Did a giant supernova explosion simply blow away much of the interstellar medium in our area? Also the light elements of hydrogen helium and lithium in our neighborhood are not in the same ratios of abundance compared to what Big Bang nucleosynthesis calculations predict. Are the predictions wrong, or, do we live in a special neighborhood.
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- The surface of the sun is 3000 Kelvin. The atmosphere above the surface is millions of degrees Kelvin. Why does the heat not flow back to the surface? Are magnetic fields holding up the energy above the surface? Another problem still to be solved.
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- Current research estimates that nearly 100% of the stars have planets, or, the number of planets equals the number of stars in the Milky Way galaxy there must be 200 million planets . Current research suggests that 17% of these are earth-size planets. How many are habitable? How many are inhabited? Is biology universal? Or, are we unique?
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- Cosmic rays and neutrinos are mysteries. An accelerating universe is a mystery. Entropy, is a law in physics which states "disorder" always increases with time. It takes adding energy to reverse this. But, in an expanding universe energy is being diluted. Entropy is taking us into a frozen void. What is our future to be?
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- The theory of relativity does not work in quantum mechanics, and vice versa. We need one theory that works for both large things and small things, astronomical things and particle-physics things. Today we are missing the math that will do this.
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- There are a dozen constants in nature. Like the speed of light, or the charge of electron, or the mass of a proton, or the strength of gravity. They are all arbitrary numbers. Where did these numbers come from? If they are slightly different the world we know would not exist. How can nature fine-tune these constants so accurately that I can be here writing this question down? (See Review #938).
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- There are 4 fundamental forces in nature. Already the electromagnetic force and the weak nuclear force can be combined into one force, the electroweak force. Can a strong nuclear force and gravity also be combined? Could there be one unified force from which all the other forces come? An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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(1) Other Reviews:
-------------------- #836 - Cosmic Distance Ladder
-------------------- #849 - The Expanding Universe
-------------------- #938 - The Universal Constants
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RSVP, with comments, suggestions and corrections. An index of all reviews is available. Some reviews are at: -------------------- http://jdetrick.blogspot.com
,or: email request for copies to: ------- jamesdetrick@comcast.net
or: ---- https://plus.google.com/u/0/ ,or, “Jim Detrick” ------- www.facebook.com,
------ www.twitter.com or cell: 707-536-3272 ------ Friday, December 6, 2013
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