Rohit Kumar
There are many things we are unaware of, from the nature of the universe (if there ever is one) to the meaning of dreams. We may find out soon. Until then, this article aims to provide some answers and a few more questions to the 20 biggest questions that science is unable to answer.
1. What is the composition of the universe?
Astronomers are faced with an embarrassing dilemma: they have no idea what 95% of the cosmos is made of. Atoms, which make up everything we see around us, make up only 5% of the total. Over the last 80 years, it’s become evident that the vast majority of the universe is made up of two mysterious entities: dark matter and dark energy. The former, discovered in 1933, functions as an invisible glue that joins galaxies and galaxy clusters. The latter, which was first revealed in 1998, is accelerating the universe’s expansion. Astronomers are getting closer to figuring out who these mysterious visitors really are.
2. When did you first notice that life started?
Something stirred up the primordial soup four billion years ago. The first molecules capable of self-replication occurred when a few simple ingredients came together to form biology. Evolution has linked us to those first biological molecules, and we humans are no exception. But how did the simple chemicals that existed on early Earth spontaneously arrange themselves into anything that resembled life? How did humans end up with DNA? How did the first cells appear?
We still can’t agree on what happened more than half a century after chemist Stanley Miller introduced his “primordial soup” theory. Some believe life originated in hot springs near volcanoes, while others believe it was sparked by meteors striking the sea.
3. Is it possible that we are the only ones in the universe?
Possibly not. From our own solar system’s Europa and Mars to planets millions of light years away, astronomers have been scanning the universe for areas where water worlds may have given origin to life. Radio telescopes have been listening in on the heavens, and in 1977, a signal that could have been an alien message was detected. Astronomers can now look for oxygen and water in distant worlds’ environments. With up to 60 billion earth-like planets in our Milky Way alone, the next few decades will be an exciting time to be an extraterrestrial hunter.
4. What is it that makes us human?
Just gazing at your DNA didn’t reveal anything — the human genome is 99 percent identical to that of a chimp and 50 percent identical to that of a banana. However, we have larger brains than other animals — not the largest, but with three times the number of neurons as a gorilla (86bn to be exact).Many of the characteristics that we originally thought made us unique — language, tool usage, and self-recognition in the mirror – are shared by other species. Perhaps the difference is due to our culture – and its consequent effect on our DNA (and vice versa).
Cooking and our command of fire, according to scientists, may have aided in our development of large brains. However, it’s possible that our ability to cooperate and trade abilities is what truly distinguishes this planet as a home for humans rather than apes.
5. What is the definition of consciousness?
We still don’t know for sure. We do know that it has to deal with a network of brain areas rather than a single area of the brain. The theory holds that if we figure out which regions of the brain are engaged and how neuronal circuitry works, we’ll be able to figure out how conscious experience emerges, which ai technology and attempts to build a brain cell by neuron could be able to aid with. The more difficult and philosophical question is why should something be conscientious in the first place.
A great tip is that we can differentiate between what’s real and what’s not by integrating and processing a great deal of information, as well as concentrating and blocking out rather than reacting to the sensory inputs bombarding us, and assume numerous future scenarios that help us find a way to survive by incorporating and processing a great deal of information, as well as concentrating and blocking out rather than reacting to the sensory inputs bombarding us.
6. What is the purpose of dreams?
We sleep for around a third of our lives. Given how much time we spend doing it, you’d think we’d know everything there is to know about it. Scientists, on the other hand, are still looking for a thorough answer for why we nap and dream. Others say dreams are nothing more than the random firings of a sleeping brain, while followers of Sigmund Freud’s theories believe dreams are representations of unfulfilled wishes — often sexual.
Animal research and advancements in brain imaging have led to a more comprehensive understanding of dreaming, which shows it may have a role in memory, having to learn, and feelings. Rats, for example, have been demonstrated to relive their waking observations in their dreams, which appears to aid them in solving complex tasks such as maze navigation.
7. What is the purpose of all this stuff?
You have no right to be here. Your “stuff” is matter, which has an antimatter counterpart that differs only in electrical charge. When they collide, they both vanish in a burst of energy. Our best ideas predict that the big bang produced equal amounts of each, so that all matter should have collided with its antimatter counterpart by now, suffocating them both and leaving the universe awash in energy. You would not exist if nature did not have a tiny bias for matter. Researchers are sorting through data from tests like the Large Hadron Collider to figure out why, with special relativity and neutrinos being the two front-runners.
8. Do other universes exist?
Our cosmos is an improbable place. If you change just a few of its parameters, life as we know it becomes impossible. Physicists are increasingly resorting to the concept of other universes in order to solve this “fine-tuning” dilemma. If there are an endless number of them in a “multiverse,” then every possible scenario will be played out somewhere, and you will, of course, end up in the universe where you can exist. It may sound far-fetched, yet evidence from cosmology and quantum physics supports this theory.
9. What will we do with all of the carbon?
For the past few hundred years, we’ve been releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, which we’ve done by burning fossil fuels that originally trapped carbon beneath the Earth’s surface. Now we must either put all of that carbon back into the atmosphere or face the repercussions of a warming climate. But how are we going to accomplish it? Burying it in ancient oil and gas fields is one option. Another option is to bury it at the bottom of the ocean. However, we have no idea how long it will be there or what the risks are. Meanwhile, we must protect natural, long-term carbon stores such as forests and peat bogs, and begin producing energy in a manner that does not emit even more CO2.
10. How can we increase the amount of energy we get from the sun?
We need an alternative mechanism to power our globe since fossil fuel reserves are running out. There are several options available to us when it comes to our nearest star. The sun’s energy generates huge amount of solar power. Another proposal is to divide water into its constituent elements, oxygen and hydrogen, using the energy in sunshine, which might provide a clean fuel for future cars. Scientists are also developing a nuclear fusion machine as part of an energy solution that relies on duplicating the processes that occur inside stars. Hopefully, these technologies would be able to meet our energy requirements.
11. What is it about prime numbers that makes them so strange?
Prime numbers — those digits that can only be divided by themselves and one – are responsible for the fact that you can purchase safely on the internet. Public key encryption, the lifeblood of the internet, employs prime numbers to create keys capable of protecting your personal information from prying eyes. Despite their essential importance in our daily lives, the primes continue to be a mystery. For centuries, the Riemann hypothesis – an apparent pattern among them – has piqued the interest of some of mathematics’ best minds. No one has been able to disarm their strangeness as of yet. It’s possible that doing so will bring the internet to a halt.
12. What is the best way to combat bacteria?
Antibiotics are one of modern medicine’s marvels. Sir Alexander Fleming’s Nobel Prize-winning discovery led to the development of medications that attacked some of the world’s deadliest diseases and allowed for surgery, transplants, and chemotherapy. This heritage, however, is in jeopardy: multidrug-resistant germs kill roughly 25,000 people in Europe each year. Our medicine pipeline has been sputtering for decades, and we’ve exacerbated the problem by overprescribing and misusing antibiotics.
Reportedly, 80% of antibiotics in the United States are used to boost farm animal growth. Thankfully, the advent of DNA sequencing is assisting us in the discovery of drugs that we had no idea bacteria could produce. We may yet be able to keep up with species 3 billion years our senior using inventive, if gross-sounding tactics like transplanting “good” bacteria from faeces and searching for new bacteria deep in the oceans.
13. Is it possible for computers to keep getting faster?
Our smartphones and tablets are minicomputers with greater processing power than the spacecraft that landed on the moon in 1969. How, on the other hand, are we going to keep expanding the amount of processing power we carry in our pockets? On a microchip, there are only so many transistors that can be crammed in. Is there any other method to construct a computer, or has the limit been reached? Different innovations are being considered by scientists these include atomically thin carbon, graphene, and new systems such as quantum computing.
14. Can we cure cancer?
No, is the quick response. Cancer, which is a nebulous group of hundreds of diseases, has been around since the dinosaurs, and the risk is built into all of us since it is caused by wayward genes. The more we live, the more likely it is that something will go wrong in some way. Cancer is a live organism that is constantly developing in order to survive.
Despite its complexity, we are learning more and more about what causes it, how it grows, and how to treat and prevent it thanks to genetics. And keep in mind that up to half of all cancers – 3.7 million per year – can be avoided by quitting smoking, drinking and eating in moderation, staying active, and avoiding prolonged exposure to the sun during the day.
15. When will I be able to hire a robot butler?
Drinks can already be served and baggage can be carried by robots. Modern robotics can provide us with a “team” of specialised robots to prepare our Amazon orders for delivery, milk the livestock, sort our emails, and ferry us between airport terminals. However, to create a really “intelligent” robot, we must first crack artificial intelligence. The big question is whether you’d leave your granny alone with a robotic butler. We’re thinking about it now, with Japan hoping to have robotic aides care for its elderly by 2025.
16. What’s at the ocean’s bottom?
Ninety-five percent of the ocean is still to be discovered. What’s going on down there? In 1960, Don Walsh and Jacques Piccard set out on a seven-mile journey to the ocean’s deepest depths in search of answers. Their journey stretched the limits of human achievement, yet it only provided them a glimpse of life on the seafloor. Because getting to the ocean’s bottom is so challenging, we’ve had to rely on deploying unmanned vehicles as scouts for the most part.
The odd world hiding beneath the waves is only a fraction of what we’ve discovered so far, from unusual fish like the barreleye, which has a translucent head, to a potential Alzheimer’s therapy manufactured by crabs.
17. What is it like to be at the bottom of a black hole?
It’s a question for which we don’t yet have the answers. According to Einstein’s general relativity, a dying, collapsing massive star creates a black hole that continues to collapse until it becomes an infinitely small, infinitely dense point known as a singularity. Quantum physics, on the other hand, is likely to have something to say on such scales.
Except that general relativity and quantum physics have never been the happiest of matching, rebuffing all attempts to bring them together for decades. A contemporary theory known as M-Theory, on the other hand, may one day explain the hidden centre of one of the universe’s most spectacular creations.
18. Is it possible for us to live indefinitely?
We live in fascinating times: we’re beginning to think of “ageing” as an illness that can be treated and possibly prevented, or at the very least postponed for a long period. Our understanding of what causes people to age – and why some animals live longer than others – is quickly expanding. And, while we haven’t figured out all the intricacies yet, the information we’re accumulating on DNA damage, the balance of ageing, metabolism, and reproductive fitness.
The study that includes the genes that control all of it, is helping us piece together a wider picture that could lead to treatment modalities. However, the important question isn’t how we’ll live longer, but how we’ll live well longer. Because many diseases such as diabetes and cancer are diseases of old age, addressing old age may be the key.
19. Can we solve the population issue?
Since the 1960s, the number of people on our globe has doubled to more than 7 billion, with projections of at least 9 billion by 2050. Where will we all reside, and how will we provide enough food and fuel for our ever-increasing population? Perhaps we should all be sent to Mars or begin constructing housing towers underground. We might even be able to consume meat created in the lab.
20. Can we travel through time?
We already have time travellers between us. Astronauts on the International Space Station discover time passing more slowly as a result of Einstein’s theory of special relativity. The effect is negligible at that speed. This increases the velocity and the effect suggests that people could one day travel thousands of years into the future. Nature doesn’t appear to like people going back in time, but some scientists have devised a complex plan to do it. The method involves using wormholes and spaceships. It may even be used to give yourself a present on Christmas Day, or to find answers to some of the known universe’s great mysteries.
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Nicely Written 👍