Lets Talk About Things Science Cannot Explain

[BAYLOR]

That sort of came up early in the thread. Dark energy was invented to provide a plausible cause/mechanism for the acceleration; we just don't understand what it is yet!

Does dark energy actually exist?

 

[mosaix]

Does dark energy actually exist?

In order to research a phenomena, in order to discuss it, it has to have a name. Short hand if you like. In this instance 'dark energy' has been chosen. The phenomena, apparently, exists. So yes, dark energy exists.

 

[JunkMonkey]

What about the fact that the Universe's rate of expansion is speeding up? This is something that makes no sense at all

Time is slowing down?

 

[Vertigo]

In order to research a phenomena, in order to discuss it, it has to have a name. Short hand if you like. In this instance 'dark energy' has been chosen. The phenomena, apparently, exists. So yes, dark energy exists.

As @mosaix says it exists but we don't know what it is. Whether it is even energy or some other effect we don't yet understand is to a certain extent irrelevant; it's just a place holder until we can fully explain the observations.

 

[BAYLOR]

We can't go out into space and collect a sample of Dark Energy for analysis .

 

[Cathbad]

We can't go out into space and collect a sample of Dark Energy for analysis .

If it exists, shouldn't there be a way to collect - or at least see (itself or evidence of) - it?

 

[BAYLOR]

If it exists, shouldn't there be a way to collect - or at least see (itself or evidence of) - it?

It might not be in a form we can even collect.

 

[JunkMonkey]

It might not be in a form we can even collect.

Yet.

 

[Vertigo]

Yet.

Precisely - once/if we understand we might be able to figure out how to collect it.

Once upon a time we didn't have the technology to collect a sample of oxygen from the air but it didn't mean it didn't exist. We had seen it's effect - fire - but didn't understand it and came up with some wildly incorrect theories about that effect, such as phlogiston. I see dark matter and dark energy in much the same light. They may just be the modern equivalent of phlogiston, but they serve as place holders until we understand the observed effects better.

 

[Cathbad]

Now if only someone could explain human behavior! It certainly baffles me!!

 

[Dulahan]

Now if only someone could explain human behavior! It certainly baffles me!!

The pursuit of the opposite sex and the aquisition of things. You could probably break down any behavior done into the search for one of those two things.

"I need more stuff or I need more *expletive*"

 

[JunkMonkey]

The pursuit of the opposite sex

Or just sex. Some of us aren't fussy.

 

[Dulahan]

I am trying to keep a bit of PG class to my posts. But that is basically what so meant, yeah.

Edit: Ah, I get what youre saying. "Pursuit of a Significant Other" then

 

[JunkMonkey]

I am trying to keep a bit of PG class to my posts. But that is basically what so meant, yeah.

Edit: Ah, I get what youre saying. "Pursuit of a Significant Other" then

That'll do.

 

[BAYLOR]

What's outside the universe?

 

[Stephen Palmer]

What's outside the universe?

Imagine a 2-D world in a sheet of paper. Finite, and has an edge.

Now imagine that world curved around the surface of a football...

 

[Phyrebrat]

Psychism. Mediumship and clairvoyance.

Altho science has definitely explained EVP: desperate believers who can hear the most specific phrases in white noise because they want to...



pH

 

[JunkMonkey]

Psychism. Mediumship and clairvoyance.

Science can't explain made up sh*t. It's like asking "can science explain Narnia?", or "can science explain Hobbits?".

 

[Cathbad]

Science can't explain made up sh*t. It's like asking "can science explain Narnia?", or "can science explain Hobbits?".

Hobbits?? Made up??

 

[Justin Swanton]

A slight shift of subject. I'm rather surprised this hasn't been brought up:

The Shroud of Turin - natural colour on left, image with colours reversed on right. It is the most scientifically studied object in history, but after 38 years beginning with the STuRP investigation in 1978, there is no scientific explanation for how the image was created.

The image lies only on the top couple of micrometres of the upper cloth fibrils. There is no pigment in the image - the cellulose in the image area has been degraded, as if slightly charred. The nearest scientific experimentation can get to this is an outfit in Switzerland who fire very short and powerful laser bursts at linen cloth. But the head of their research team affirms that he would need lasers of several billion watts power firing for only a billionth of a second or so to darken the cloth so superficially without destroying it. And he can't create an impression of a human figure. In the case of the shroud the energy would have had to come from the body.

Plus the fact that the Shroud image is the only picture in existence with 3D coding - i.e. it contains instructions to build a 3D model. Here's how it was done.

The C14 test - we all know about that - is under fresh investigation.