Lets Talk About Things Science Cannot Explain

[Ray McCarthy]

After the evils of the Brexit debate, that's a refreshing article

Who knew that beavers were visible from space?

Tim Peake?

 

[BAYLOR]

Dark Matter and dark energy their very nature and why they behave the way they do.

 

[galanx]

Im trying imagine what life here would be like if Jupiter had been a star instead of gas Giant.

Hmmm... since that's the conclusion of 2010, did Arthur C. chip in on this?

 

[galanx]

I dunno. But, these giant structures made by animals are probably only fully explainable by the aminals themselves. Who knew that beavers were visible from space?
Biggest Animal-Made Structures In The World - Odd Culture

As a former member of the British Columbia Railway's elite Anti-Beaver Squadron, I say, "Take off and nuke it from space. It's the only way to be sure."

These vicious pestilential over-grown water rats cannot be trusted. Today, northern Alberta, tomorrow the world!

Okay, maybe they're not that bad, but they can be total pains in the butt.

When you're building a road or railroad, when you come to a stream that's small enough, instead of building a bridge, you just fill it with a crossing of dirt and gravel and put a culvert in the bottom to carry the water through.

Then a beaver comes along and thinks "How nice- someone built a dam for me, but the silly fool left a hole in the bottom." So Mr. and Mrs. Beaver get to work plugging the hole and soon have a lovely pond for all the little Beavers. But of course the water pressure against the fill causes erosion, buckling, and sometimes collapse.

Since the beavers have plugged the upstream end, that means someone has to crawl up the culvert, pull away all the mud, sticks, and other debris, hook chains onto the solid wood of the plug, andthen crawl out backwards (all in varying degrees of darkness). Then the crew gives the old heave-ho on the chains. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

If it doesn't work, or only partially, this means you have to crawl back up the pipe and do it again, now often with a flow of freezing (this is up near the Yukon border) muddy, filthy, beaver-feces-ridden[1] water in your face, all the while hoping the plug doesn't suddenly give way, giving you the full flood.

[1]"Beaver fever", the popular name for "Giardia: Symptoms vary from none to severe diarrhea with poor absorption of nutrients.[3] It can result in weakness, loss of appetite, stomach cramps, vomiting, bloating, excessive gas, and burping.

"Aw, they're so cute" Ha!

Though I do think an Alternate History with a race of intelligent beavers would be cool.

 

[galanx]

Hmmm... since that's the conclusion of 2010, did Arthur C. chip in on this?

Oooops, always read downthread before posting.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

"How nice- someone built a dam for me, but the silly fool left a hole in the bottom." So Mr. and Mrs. Beaver get to work plugging the hole and soon have a lovely pond for all the little Beavers.

Obviously you ought to build bridges, various places in Europe are re-introducing beavers because they are so good for ecosystem. Also wolves as the existence of them dramatically reduces deer destroying the trees. It only makes a small difference to deer population which usually has to be reduced periodically anyway.

Alternate History with a race of intelligent beavers would be cool.

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe?

 

[J Riff]

On an animal note - I joined the EOL yesterday. It's going to be quite the database... apparently there are still more undiscovered than discovered species... most life is invisible to our eyes, and the bulk of it below where there's light in the ocean.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Get a bucket of pond water and there is a good chance of discovering "new" species of Algae. You can then name them.

 

[BAYLOR]

But the whole Dark matter and Dark energy thing is rather perplexing.

 

[Cathbad]

But the whole Dark matter and Dark energy thing is rather perplexing.

Dark Energy is the eldest. He was born a millennia before his sibling, Dark Matter.

The two quarrel over even the most trivial of matters. It is quite the challenge to remain in the same quadrant with the two!

 

[Ray Pullar]

Re: naming new algae. Science is either physics or rock-pooling.

 

[Vertigo]

But the whole Dark matter and Dark energy thing is rather perplexing.

I meant to reply to your earlier post on Dark Matter and Energy but clearly got distracted.

What I was going to say is that I'm staggered it's taken this long for it to appear in this thread. I actually had to do a search of the thread as I was sure it must have already been discussed but no! Wow. Two of the biggest head scratching issues in modern astrophysics and it's only just come up. Oh well.

Anyway. I agree these are certainly two pretty darn big subjects that science cannot explain. And I can't help thinking that when/if we do find an answer it might just turn our understanding of the universe on its head.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

I'm staggered it's taken this long for it to appear in this thread.

We discussed them on some other thread.
The existence of either is a little tenuous and more to do with trying to make observations (that we don't quite understand) fit theories (that don't explain everything, don't connect with each other and are not fully understood).

And I can't help thinking that when/if we do find an answer it might just turn our understanding of the universe on its head.

Yes.

 

[J Riff]

There has to be space-dust, at least a few molecules, everywhere. Pockets of radiation, warmer bits, and mystery stuff, in space. Looking through it, to the next galaxy or two, why it must be dark matter, being dark and mysterious.
Grab some moss and soak it, then get out the microscope and look for Tardigrades/Water Bears - the toughest critters in the world. They could survive space flight in their tiny tiny ship... or they could survive an atomic blast what would deeestroy us all on this planet.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

There has to be space-dust, at least a few molecules, everywhere.

There is.
Part of red-shift is now thought to be due to it.
However it's not enough to account for discrepancies:
1)The Universe is expanding at wrong speed.
2)The stars rotating around the galaxy should behave like planets around the sun, Kepler's equations of motion. They don't, the Milky way behaves more like a record player disc (not exactly). Rotation near the edge should take very much longer and near the galactic core a lot shorter.
Dark Energy and Dark Matter allow these two observations to fit known models and and theories

 

[Parson]

the Milky way behaves more like a record player disc (not exactly).

Ray, could you explain this a little more? Remember you are talking to a social science major, not someone with much in the way of advanced maths etc.

I believe I understand what you mean when you talk about the difference in the way a record player spins and the orbits of the planets. It's the "not exactly" part that befuddles me.

 

[Dennis E. Taylor]

If you draw radial lines straight out from the center of the galaxy, then let it spin, the lines will fall behind at the outer edges, because the outer edges revolve slower. That's the "solar system" model, and it's what we expect based on normal orbital mechanics. In the "platter" model, the line will continue to be straight through subsequent rotations. This would require the outer edges to actually be travelling faster than the inner stuff, since they have a longer way around.
The reality is somewhere between those. The speed of objects revolving around the center of the galaxy doesn't drop off with distance from the center as fast as we expect it to, if we use normal orbital mechanics calculations. The calculations work out, though, if we assume that the galaxy is sitting in a cloud of matter-- one which we can't see and which doesn't interact with normal matter other than through gravity.

 

[Parson]

@Bizmuth -- Well done, that I do understand. (I mean I understand the concept!) I doubt that anyone can really understand it. I now have a clue as to why dark matter is so needed, and yet seems impossible to discover.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

way a record player spins and the orbits of the planets. It's the "not exactly" part that befuddles me.

Kepler's laws of planetary motion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Basically the 3rd law
The square of the orbital period of a planet is directly proportional to the cube of the semi-major axis of its orbit.
This is due to sum of masses of the two objects (applies to stars) and the inverse square law of gravity, Newton's second law
Newton's laws of motion - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A record player disc, or any disc, all the parts rotate at same angular speed. So a dot on label is 78 rpm and a dot on outer edge is also 78 rpm (Think of it as an orbit 78 times a minute)

Sun's Galactic rotation period 240 Million years
Spiral pattern rotation period 220–360 Million years
Bar pattern rotation period 100–120 Million years

There is not enough difference! Only a 2:1 ratio on a structure over 150 million light years across. It's behaving more solidly that it should.
Milky Way - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stars and gases at a wide range of distances from the Galactic Center orbit at approximately 220 kilometers per second. The constant rotation speed contradicts the laws of Keplerian dynamics and suggests that much of the mass of the Milky Way does not emit or absorb electromagnetic radiation. This mass has been termed "dark matter".[34]

We can see that other disc or spiral galaxies have this same strange rotational property,

Cf. variation in Solar system
Mercury: 87.97 days (0.2 years)
Venus : 224.70 days (0.6 years)
Earth: 365.26 days(1 year)
Mars: 686.98 days(1.9 years)
Jupiter: 4,332.82 days (11.9 years)
Saturn: 10,755.70 days (29.5 years)
Uranus: 30,687.15 days (84 years)
Neptune: 60,190.03 days (164.8 years)

Note that a planet further from the centre MUST have a much longer orbital period:
Orbital period - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Due to masses and gravity. Thus Mars can ONLY be 1.9 yr and Jupiter ONLY 11.9 yrs due to Sun's mass + planet's mass and the distance

In celestial mechanics, when both orbiting bodies' masses have to be taken into account, the orbital period T can be calculated as follows:[3]

T = 2 π a 3 G ( M 1 + M 2 ) {\displaystyle T=2\pi {\sqrt {\frac {a^{3}}{G\left(M_{1}+M_{2}\right)}}}}

where:

• a is the sum of the semi-major axes of the ellipses in which the centers of the bodies move, or equivalently, the semi-major axis of the ellipse in which one body moves, in the frame of reference with the other body at the origin (which is equal to their constant separation for circular orbits),
• M1 + M2 is the sum of the masses of the two bodies,
• G is the gravitational constant.

Note that the orbital period is independent of size: for a scale model it would be the same, when densities are the same (see also Orbit#Scaling in gravity).[citation needed]

In a parabolic or hyperbolic trajectory, the motion is not periodic, and the duration of the full trajectory is infinite

The explanation for the "wrong" expansion rate of the Universe is Dark Energy.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Also related to "Lets Talk About Things Science Cannot Explain":
Why bad ideas refuse to die
(The Flat Earth is mentioned, see myth of the Flat Earth)