Things We Don't Understand (first in a series)

I’ve subscribed to Scientific American for years.  Much of its content is beyond my ken.  Still, it’s a rich source of reminders that we don’t know everything about God’s creation, let alone fully understand what we do know. 

Here are a few things I noted in the June 2005 issue.

• The constants of nature, for example the velocity of light, may be changing with time.  Research into string theory suggests that the universe may have as many as eleven dimensions, implying that "the constants we observe may not, in fact, be the truly fundamental ones.  Those live in the full higher-dimensional space, and we see only their three-dimensional “shadows.” (p. 57, emphasis added). 

Ed.:  Some speculate that Jesus’s resurrection may have had something to do with other dimensions.  See, for example, this Q&A with the host of the recent ABC News 20/20 special on the resurrection — scroll down to the comment attributed to scholar Paul Maier.

 

• Anti-matter is a fixture of the Star Trek future, but it doesn’t exist in nature, and we don’t know very much about it. Researchers are working on ways of manufacturing the stuff.  “[T]he conflagration of a single gram of antimatter particles merging with their normal matter siblings would release energy equivalent to about 40 kilotons of TNT, or enough to power nearly 5,00 households for a year.”  (p. 79)

• Damage to the language center of the brain may enhance mathematical abilities (p. 28). 

Ed.:  The brain is so important, yet we know so little about how it works.

• Hydrogen sulfide is extremely toxic, but it seems to play some sort of role in putting animals into suspended animation.  Studies into this area may someday prove useful in medicine (p. 55)

• Free radicals may have something to do with the cardiovascular dangers associated with sleep apnea (p. 25).

Comments

[Fred Kruger]

On the speed of light: I believe Einstein defended his assumption that its speed was constant over time based on the notion that you have to start somewhere. However, ever since the accounts of the last four or five years showing that the rate of acceleration in the Universe has been expanding, I have been wondering if in fact the speed of light has been slowing over these same billions of years. I believe all of these measurements of the rate of expansion for our Universe assume a constant speed of light over time. A declining speed of light over time (when a constant speed is assumed) would result in an erroneous interpretation of an increasing rate of speed of separation between Galaxies, which in turn would suggest that the rate of expansion of the Universe was increasing. However, I haven’t seen much discussion of this possibility amongst those who actually do the math and make the measurements.