10 Questions About Our World That Scientists Still Haven’t Found Answers To
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A little mystery in the air is something all of us love. One side of us tries to rationalize it, the other secretly enjoys the enigma. Maybe this is why a lot of questions remained unanswered in the history of science. The unfathomable Universe seems to be enjoying this too, for, it doesn’t want to unravel the answers to the most basic questions like who are we, where did we come from, and where are we going to? While the scientists look for answers, let’s look at the list of some creepy things in the Universe that science has no answer for.
#1 Why Do Women Have Large Breasts
Much like our ancestors, the apes, women’s breasts produce milk only when it’s time to feed their newborn. But unlike the apes, women continue to have large breasts even when they are not breastfeeding. Many experts are questioning as to why this might be the case.
The biologists who study evolution often say that big breasts are mainly prevalent to attract the members of Mars – the men. It is said that big breasts usually send out a message to the potential mates that their children will be well taken care of by the woman in question.
The Anthropologists, on the other hand, debate this idea, considering that many cultures do not promote the idea of the mammary glands being the sole reason for sexual arousal in men.
#2 The Ocean
The ocean is a great source of pleasure, isn’t it? Those summer vacations, sand castles, full moon tides, and those peaceful dawns. The very idea of the blues tickles my insides. That said, there’s the ugly side of it too – the ferocious underwater animals, the volcanic vents, and the wrath-filled earthquakes causing Tsunamis and the like. These are all beyond human control and cause widespread havoc. Surprisingly enough, scientists say that 95% of the seabed is still unexplored and no one really knows what happens down there. Imagine trying to get your hands on something so massive that just needs a single attempt to sweep away millions of human beings. No wonder we like to stick to the shore and leave the rest to whoever wants to mess with the mystery.
#3 THE Triangle
Since we’ve anyway decided upon talking about oceans and the mystery surrounding it, there’s no way we can’t not talk about The Bermuda Triangle. This Western part of North Atlantic ocean has been a silent witness to myriad storms, strange accidents, ships that have gone missing, and airplanes that have vanished out of sight to the extent where even their debris could not be found. Again, humans have rationalized these activities and declared that every accident was due to human error, navigational confusion or technical glitches, but they don’t seem to be convincing. Some still like to believe that the inexplicable disasters happened because of paranormal reasons.
#4 Animals And Earthquakes
Geophysicists have been looking into the credibility of the fact that animals can sense an impending earthquake. There’s no firm evidence yet that they can sense it, but not many scientists disagree with this point either. For instance, Haicheng, a city in China, could forecast a 7.9 magnitude earthquake a few days before it occurred sheerly by observing strange and bizarre barking patterns in the dogs of that region. They successfully evacuated the city and reported that had they not evacuated, they would have to incur a massive loss of 1,50,000 human beings. Some attribute this to the ability of animals to sense the tremors and others to their ability to perceive electrical changes. However, the real reason is yet to be identified.
#5 Water All Over
Forget oceans; there’s overwhelming amount of water on this planet and what an irony that scientists know very little about this ubiquitous fluid. This king of anomalies tends to occupy more space (more volume) and becomes less dense when in its frozen form. Did you ever notice that glass water bottles break when you put them in the freezer? All other liquids become denser and occupy less space when they freeze except for this mysterious Mr. Aitch Too O.
#6 Time – Hello, There?
Before I get into what Einstein said, lemme tell you something interesting. Scientists who spend ages studying the space in International Space Station age much lesser than their office buddies who are in the comforts of the earth. Technically, when and if they come back they are younger than those here on the earth. This is where we should remember the oh-so-brainy Einstein, who said time is relative and is felt and experienced by human beings at different speeds. It always bothered me why it should be 10:27 am in India now, 7:57 am in Moscow now, and 6:57 am in Sweden now. Like, what is “now” really? An Illusion? Although time is relative, science hasn’t come up with a clear-cut equation that explains everything about time.
#7 The Pi Problem
I just thought that water was ubiquitous, and guess who proved me wrong? This time it is mysterious Mr. Pi. The last time I ever dealt with him was in a heart-rending situation called “Math Class.” And that was around a decade ago. This chap (or is it a girl?) is inherently unknowable, as in you are going to need like tons of lifetimes to calculate “his” value. Nerds have calculated up to some billions of numbers and then seem to have given up because apparently, the numbers that kept emerging followed no distinct pattern. So, you can neither remember nor can you predict! Apart from helping in finding out the circumference of the circle, this chap pops out of nowhere and everywhere like the proverbial Matrix. The entire Universe can’t fit in Pi. This makes you want to ponder whether you too are in this Pi or if the Pi is in you, or if you, yourself, are Pi.
#8 Dimensions Of Space
It took me my entire schooling to understand the three dimensions of space. We could all get to…what? Up and down, back and forth, and yes! Right and left. Exactly when I am muddled up with the fact that my right is actually left for someone who is standing opposite to me and my up is down for someone standing on the floor above mine, I stumble upon this fancy Youtube video that is explaining about the 8 dimensions of the Universe. They, of course, lost me there. I went on to watch videos that spoke of 10 dimensions and even 11. While they figure that out, beware, there could be some beings on the higher dimensions that are probably staring right at you while you scratch your arse thinking no one’s around.
#9 Burning Humans
Okay, so there is this really cool term for this phenomenon where human beings just start burning without anybody initiating this fire, and the term is Spontaneous Human Combustion. In this strange phenomenon, no one knows where the fire comes from, but without any source of fire, the person begins to burn and his whole body becomes a sort of candle wick. And guess what the fuel for this fire is? FAT! Although scientists explained how the human beings burn completely, they didn’t quite explain where the fire came from.
#10 Plants Communicate
Plants communicate, and we sort of believe that. What’s even more interesting is that they actually calculate. Unlike humans, they make use of sunlight and some green colored chemicals inside them to make their own food. Unfortunately, sunlight isn’t available at night, and these plants have all decided that they should save some starch. You know, just in case! However, this mechanism of storing happens only after every cell has made its own highly precise calculations to figure out how much to store. Also, it is said or rather believed that they communicate not with sound but with smell. None of this is proved yet though, and we have successfully pushed the plant kingdom down into lower trophic levels.
It is so funny that we formulate some codes and programs to make a bunch of machines work just so that we can hear each other and see each other in spite of being miles apart (maybe one’s in space and the other on the ground) – and we consider this the biggest achievement. Of course, it is big, but the BIG UNIVERSE still keeps all its secrets intact. So, what’s your take on this? You want to limit yourself to rationale or make irrational your new rationale? Comment below and tell me what other things you know about this world that our scientists haven’t got the hang of yet.
