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Science's 125 Big Questions
Shadow Wrought writes "To celebrate their 125th anniversary Science is running a series of articles on the 125 Questions of Science. The top 25 each link to an article exploring the subject of the question in depth. Included are such questions as: Are we alone in the Universe? What are the limits of conventional computing? How did cooperative behavior evolve?"
Are we alone in the Universe? What are the limits of conventional computing? Why I can't I get a date?
We already know the answer to the ONE question... What we REALLY need to do is build a machine to figure out what that question is - who's with me?!
Really? I'd think swapping them round might be a good idea. I won't comment on the ordering of biology vs physics though, as it's hard to fairly rank the two.
A preditor/parasite found that it's easier to keep eating if it doesn't kill off it's host completely. Small steps from there could make it benign to it's host; and further small steps can make it cooperative.
42 * 2.9761904761904761904761904761905 == 125 Coincidence? I think not!
Given this average height, toast doesn't have time rotate more than half a turn before hitting the ground. If tables and people were something like 10 feet tall, then people would be wondering why toast allways falls with the butter side up.
Well, the 10 feet figure is made up but that's the basic idea from the article.
Generally answers seem to cluster around the idea of kinship and the furthering of an individuals gene pool.Perhaps the answer will come in tandem with the solution to another evolutionary riddle pertaining to our kind, why is it we have such relatively small canines? The males of most primate species have large canines especially for fighting, usually other males in order to win controll of groups of females. Some speculation has it that monogamy in our kind did away with the need for large canines, or maybe, in our kind females did away with the male perrogative of controlling breeding?
!Happy Birthday Canada!
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
Or to put it another way: Why does the entropy of any closed system always increase? Why do we take the 'causal' solution to Maxwell's equations when determining the field generated by an accelerating charge? Why does the evolution of a quantum system appear to involve an irreversible step - wavefunction collapse? These may in fact be the same question in different guises. I think it's the number one question in physics. Every fundamental law of physics has time reversal symmetry (or at least CPT symmetry) and 'future' and 'past' look as similar as 'left' and 'right' at a fundamental level. So the arrow of time we see so blatantly around us is in serious need of explanation. It's almost as if physicists live in denial about the fact that their fundamental theories clearly just don't seem to match up with reality. But there are some good books on the subject such as Zeh's.
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
More than half of the top 25 were biology questions. You'd think physics would be a little more strongly represented. But I'm all for answering the evolution questions if it'll stop my in-laws from giving me creationist literature.
The article on why humans have so few genes does some nice hand-waving but fails to answer the core question. Sure, the genome can do some interesting combinatoric stuff to get more out of a given length of DNA, but that does not answer the question -- why should humans have fewer genes than something so simple as a mustard plant or rice?
I suspect the answer is related to human (mammalian) mobility and thermoregulation. If a rice plant gets stuck in a hot place, all it can do is use a different part of its genome to make proteins suited for hotter weather. In contrast, people can move out of the sun while their body basically maintains a constant temperature. Similarly if the plant faces too much cold, too much water, too little water, to much sun, too little sun, too much salt, etc. it can do nothing but sit there and hopefully pull something out of its genome that can cope.
The point is that plants must adapt to whatever their environment gives them much more so than humans. Human mobility and the ability to modify its environment means it is less reliant on gene-based adaptability.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
What is the nature and origin of the Universe?
Now that is the real question. And I'm not talking Big Bang or Grand Unified Theory or whatever. I'm talking "Big Picture" here.
What existed before our universe? What is the original nature of existence...of what we call "reality"?
That for throwing it from a building. For it falling off the table, it has enough time for rotating 180 degrees. That simple.
Here's something else interesting:
Tumbling toast, Murphy's Law and the Fundamental Constants
European Journal of Physics 16 172-176 1995
There's a widespread suspicion among the public that toast sliding off a plate or table has a natural tendency to land butter side down, thus providing prima facie evidence for Murphy's Law: "If something can go wrong, it will". Most scientists, in contrast, dismiss such belief as ludicrous. Indeed, an investigation by the BBC-TV science programme Q.E.D. in 1993 claimed to have proved definitively that the whole notion was nothing but an urban myth. However, as I show in the paper, the experiments carried out by the programme were dynamically inappropriate (in that they consisted of people simply tossing buttered bread into the air - hardly common practice around the breakfast table). When the problem of toast sliding off a plate or table is examined more carefully - with the toast modelled as a thin, rigid, rough lamina - it turns out that the public perception is quite correct. Toast does indeed have a natural tendency to land butter side down, essentially because the gravitation torque induced as the toast topples over the edge of the plate/table is insufficient to bring the toast butter-side up again by the time it hits the floor. Note that this has nothing to do with some aerodynamic effect caused by one side being buttered - it is just gravity, plus a bit of friction.However, I go on to show that the tumbling toast phenomenon has far deeper roots than one might expect. If tables were a lot higher - around 3 metres high - the problem of toast landing butter-side down would go away, as the toast would have enough time to complete a full rotation. So why are tables the height they are ? Simple: to be convenient for humans. So why are humans the height they are ? Using a simple chemical bonding model of the human frame, I show that there is a limit to the safe height for bipedal, essentially cylindrical creatures like humans. The limit is around 3 metres - above that height, a simple fall results in gravity accelerating the skull to such a high kinetic energy that the chemical bonds in the skull are ruptured, causing severe fracturing. This limit, in turn, sets a maximum height on tables suitable for creatures with human articulation of about 1.5 metres - which is still not high enough to prevent toast landing butter-side down. It thus seems that human-like organisms are doomed to experience this manifestation of Murphy's Law.
But then comes the real cosmic twist in the tale. The formula giving the maximum height of humans turns out to contain three so-called "fundamental constants of the universe". The first - the electromagnetic fine-structure constant - determines the strength of the chemical bonds in the skull, while the second - the gravitational fine-structure constant - determines the strength of gravity. Finally, the so-called Bohr radius dictates the size of atoms making up the body. The precise values of these three fundamental constants were built into the very design of the universe just moments after the Big Bang. In other words, toast falling off the breakfast table lands butter-side down because the universe is made that way.
Having made this depressing discovery about the nature of our universe, I felt duty-bound to come up with some ways around it. After all, we should not be fatalistic about such things. There are any number of daft ways (eating from 3 metre high tables, eating tiny squares of toast, putting the butter on the underside, tying the toast to a cat, which of course knows how to get right-side up during a fall, etc. etc). The physicist's approach is to minimise the amount of time the toast is exposed to the turning effect of gravity. This means doing the opposite of what you might expect. If your toast is sliding off the table, you should give it a swipe with your hand, to increase its ho
The article on why humans have so few genes [sciencemag.org] does some nice hand-waving but fails to answer the core question. Sure, the genome can do some interesting combinatoric stuff to get more out of a given length of DNA, but that does not answer the question -- why should humans have fewer genes than something so simple as a mustard plant or rice?
Actually, it's mostly that evolution has created DNA sequences, mitochondrial DNA, and various fragments and editing/copying mechanisms that allows it to get a lot done with less than you think, by silencing segments, reusing segments, having offsets for copying, and allowing proteins to shift and rotate.
The world is way more complex than the old days of DNA makes proteins and each segment makes one and only one - everything interacts, mutations occur, copying errors happen, and it's all really kind of beautiful on the proteomics level.
So that isn't really a question anymore - we have enough genes to get the job done, because they have more capabilities than anyone imagined ten years ago.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
...What is conventional computing?
Is it binary operations implemented with semiconductors? Is it the use of a monolithic computation device to perform generic tasks?
Or is it something more nebulous, like the ability for an individual's performance to be improved through the use of a computer? The use of an extremely configurable tool to aid in specific tasks with real-world results?
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
Saturn is rotating slower: And Saturn is rotating seven minutes more slowly than when probes measured its spin in the 70s and 80s - an observation experts cannot yet explain.
If you look, they chose to ask very specific questions about biology and very general questions about physics. That very first question on the list, "what is the universe made of?", could have been easily split into five to ten different specific questions; similarly the list in general contained a number of groups of five to ten biology questions that are in a similar enough category they possibly could have been in some way collated. If they'd done either of these things the balance of the list would have seemed quite different even though the article as a whole was asking the exact same things.
But the way they did it makes sense to me, since it seems (to me) like right now biology has a good grasp on the big picture but is a little confused about specifics, whereas physics is absolutely drowning in specifics and at one of those points where they need some general answers about how all of these specifics fit together.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Clearly, it should have been "the rotational velocity of toast".
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Martin Gardner says that the superultimate question is: Why does the universe exist?
Or, put another way: Why is there something rather than nothing?
Perhaps this is more of a philosophical or metaphysical question, but I think it fits in well with the great scientific questions.
If you think about it, you'll realize that things would be alot simpler if nothing existed at all. Why does the universe go to all the bother of existing? It's a pretty overwhelming thought -- a good reminder that we still don't know much about the fundamental rules of nature. As Gardner said, "the night is large".
The most rabid believers in American Exceptionalism are the exact same people whose policies are destroying it.
Tidal locking. The increased gravitational field towards the bottom of the toast will act to brake the rotation of the higher mass of the jam as it reaches the lowpoint and starts to rotate upwards.
As an aside, this theory predicts that, dry, unadorned toast will tend to land on it's edge.
Play Command HQ online
Glass is transparent because the majority of its atoms are aligned so the photons of light are not reflected, absorbed or scattered.
Yes there is, it's under "What are the limits of conventional computing?"
Subsection 1: "Are there any limits to the desire of the organism homogeekus to port Linux to any device imaginable and then communicate the accomplishment in symbolic form?"
From the Internet Oracle Best of Digests :
make world, not war
What Is the Universe Made Of? No we don't know what dark matter is, that's why it's called dark.
..probably in S. Korea.
..just some ideas
What is the Biological Basis of Consciousness? If you could solve this you would in essence be "God". The sum of the parts is greater than the whole, and because we tend to determine the workings of all the parts, it's difficult for any one person or persons to see the big picture.
How Much Can Human Life Span Be Extended? For as long as the brain can hold out.
How Can a Skin Cell Become a Nerve Cell? This won't be answered in the US
How Does Earth's Interior Work? Ever watch The Core?
Are We Alone in the Universe? "If we were, it would be an awful waste of space"
Is an Effective HIV Vaccine Feasible? Not if the pharmaceutical companies have anything to say about it!!
How Hot Will the Greenhouse World Be? What you mean you can't tell right now?
What Can Replace Cheap Oil -- and When? The US is the world's largest grower of corn. It can provide enough *biodiesel* for the entire US and then some. The oil cartels and the politicans (e.g. Bush) who have alot to lose if we switch to biodiesel fear this. So government pays corn farmers money (called subsidies) to underproduce or burn excess crop. Granted biodiesel does burn at a higher temperature and would require modification of engine components (probably would be more expensive initially), but in the long run this would be much cheaper for everyone. Currently companies such as Cummins and its subsidiaries are looking into biodiesel.
Are we alone? Almost certainly not; there's no reason it should have happened here and not elsewhere in this insanely large universe. Will we ever find out? Maybe not... how many technologically sophisticated cultures are there actively broadcasting their presence, in the wavelengths we're watching, close enough that we can hear them?
Me (Blog)
Dark matter and the biological basis of consciousness are well below the big question: What is knowledge? What is consciousness, and what is truth? This should be answered before the question of what the biological basis of consciousness can be known. We don't even know what consciousness is, so why do we look for its biological basis first?
(The answer to the last question is: We didn't. But we haven't found any good answer yet, unless we believe in Plato et al. But science is, metaphorically speaking, a house of cards built in the air. And I'm saying that with no disrespect to science. (And yes, I'm a bit drunk, but I'm still serious.))
The big picture is about existance itself. Why does "existance" exist? It's a depressing question because I don't think it'll ever be answered, and I can't keep thinking about it.
Does there need to be a why? As history has shown us, hows are all there is, why are often superflous questiosn we ask because we're bored.
"There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Actually, it is far more fun to spray a cat's feet with non-stick "buttery" spray, and send the cat off across the linoleum floor... Especially if there is a dog nearby :)
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
The simplest solution is usually the best.
That's NOT Occam's razor. The way it's usually stated is a fantastically bad translation. Occam's razor is really:
Don't make unneccesary assumptions.
They seem similar at first glance, but the more common translation makes no distinction between assumptions and known/observable facts. That distinction is at the core of the razor's meaning. The loss of that distinction can in some cases lead the real razor and its bad translation to opposite conclusions.
Take, for example, the question "How does electricity work?" The two most common proposed answers (and I would argue, the two categories under which all possible answers can be collected) are "Particle physics" and "God did it." Now, particle physics is very complicated. It takes years of study to understand, and one of the main points of the article under discussion is that there's still a lot we don't yet understand about it. "God did it" is a much simpler explanation. The bad translator's razor explicitly favors God. But particle physics is complicated because it is an enormous mess of known, observed, incontrovertible facts. Where facts are not known, physics actively avoids making any assumptions at all Theology's entire point (the overwhelming majority of respected theologians agree with me on this) is that it rests on faith--making assumptions about formally undecidable propositions like the existence of God. So the true Occam's razor favors particle physics, quite the opposite of the bad translation's conclusion.
In regards to your specific use of the razor, the bad translation has again led you to the wrong conclusion. The assumption that we are alone is a much simpler solution than the assumption that we are not, but it is not necessary, now or ever, to assume either. Until we find alien life or a compelling reason to believe there is none, simply keep your mind open about it.
The original Howling Frog is a fictional character and has no UID.
(In fact, glass is a fluid much like water - only a LOT more viscous.)
a ss_being_liquid_at_room_temperature
I've often heard this, and the windows of several-hundred-year-old buildings are often cited as an example of this (a high school physics teacher told this story to the class), with the bottom part of the glass pane being thicker than the top, but I recall hearing an alternative explanation of this. Also, many precisely made pieces of glass, such as binocular lenses and telescope lenses and mirrors, do NOT flow measurably over decades or centuries at normal temperatures.
Googling glass flow bring several relevant links such as this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glass#The_myth_of_gl
Okay, perhaps glass does flow, but if so the rate of flow is many orders of magnitude slower than would be indicated by the thicknesses of the old glass windows.
Tag lost or not installed.
We all know that particles (i.e. electrons, protons) with opposite charges get attracted to each other.
My question is...
WHY? Yes, I know they're opposite charges, and the Coulomb's law and everything... but why? Any quantum physicist to enlighten me?
Here's a snippet from a better explanation than I was going to write:
"A transparent material is one in which the charged particles can't permanently absorb any photons of visible light. While these charged particles all try to absorb the visible light photons, they find that there are no permanent quantum states available to them when they do. Instead, they play with the photons briefly and then let them continue on their way."
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman