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Human knowledge could be said to have started as a barren desert of ignorance. Over time individuals would pick up a handful of that desert, question how it got there, or why it does what it does and attempt to ascribe an explanation. To start with, each handful was assigned a suitable deity and placed aside as ‘mystery solved’ and the desert became strewn with a thousand different piles of ascribed deific jurisdiction.
Then along came the scientific method and all those individual piles were scooped up, re-examined and given explanations that could be predicted and tested. Over time, the many small piles became a giant mountain of knowledge. Scientists looked upon this mountain and it was good. But this mountain hides a secret. Hidden deep within are a series of dark caves – holes in the mountain of knowledge that have defied explanation and that are home to questions that remain stubbornly resistant to solution. Some are surprisingly familiar. We still do not know how life first emerged from non-living matter, where all of Earth’s water came from, or why the Universe wasn’t just obliterated the moment it came into being. Others reveal cracks in the foundations of modern physics, from the invisible substance holding galaxies together to the mysteries hidden beyond the event horizons of black holes. In many cases, scientists understand enough to build technologies, make predictions and test theories with extraordinary precision – yet complete explanations remain hidden in those caves’ dark shadows just beyond reach. The six mysteries that follow span physics, astronomy, chemistry and biology. They mark some of the deepest caves in our mountain of knowledge, places where the light of explanation succumbs to shadowy uncertainty and where some of science’s most profound questions are answered only by echoes. Read the rest at Philosophical Magazine Comments are closed.
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