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Things we still dont know

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RudyGarmisch
Posts: 25443 - Karma: 13,844
Dont ask me how I found this, but an interesting quote from Wikipedia's page on Ice:

Until recently, it was widely believed that ice was slippery because the pressure of an object in contact with it caused a thin layer to melt. For example, the blade of an ice skate, exerting pressure on the ice, melted a thin layer, providing lubrication between the ice and the blade.
This explanation is no longer accepted. There is still debate about why ice is slippery. The explanation gaining acceptance is that ice molecules in contact with air cannot properly bond with the molecules of the mass of ice beneath (and thus are free to move like molecules of liquid water). These molecules remain in a semiliquid state, providing lubrication regardless of pressure against the ice exerted by any object.[7]


Seriously? We have Olympic sports in which this fact is... well, crucial. And we have no idea how it works? Led me to a cool article, worth the read, and...

http://www.cracked.com/article/161_6-things-your-body-does-every-day-that-science-cant-explain/

What still exists that science has yet to explain? More common and surprising the item, the better, amaze me.
May 11 2011 4:31AM
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hoodratz47
Posts: 12020 - Karma: 9,475
we have no fucking clue how our brain stores memories


but on the ice one.. thats crazy.. i get with how skis work. and the water idea
but say cold ice is slippery but very cold ice is sticky. crazy shit.

same with adhesives.... we just know they stick.



related pic
Click for larger image
May 11 2011 4:38AM
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baethoven
Posts: 4953 - Karma: 332
Whether Obama was born in the U.S...



all jokes aside, the real FIFA world cup was stolen in the 80s and still hasn't showed up..
(sorry this isn't that cool)
May 11 2011 4:54AM
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feihlination
Posts: 8356 - Karma: 1,084
i always knew this is bullshit
May 11 2011 5:16AM
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feihlination
Posts: 8356 - Karma: 1,084
addition to the icy thingy


http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/21/science/21ice.html?pagewanted=2
May 11 2011 5:22AM
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k-rob
Posts: 14217 - Karma: 2,891
nothing is explained, we don't know shit.

the fact of the matter stands that nothing can be proven, only disproven. no matter how many times you test something, there is always a chance that the next test could yield a negative result and disprove the theory.


i always figured that ice melting wasn't the reason it's slippery. i mean, ice is slippery even when it's environment is below freezing, the thing sliding against it is below freezing, and the friction cause doesn't amount to any temperature above freezing. what really amazes me is how long it takes us to disprove theories like this.
May 11 2011 5:25AM
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hoodratz47
Posts: 12020 - Karma: 9,475
maybe since water is both positive and negative that it has its own gravitational properties. i have a idea about it . but alas im to tired and my key board batteries are dying,
May 11 2011 5:27AM
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feihlination
Posts: 8356 - Karma: 1,084
true dat
May 11 2011 5:48AM
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derbski
Posts: 3173 - Karma: 62
There obviously has to be some sort of liquid layer at the top otherwise salt would never melt ice. You can lower the melting point of H2O by adding a salt that ionizes in it, but you can't ionize salt in a solid. Without a liquid membrane, freezing point depression couldn't take place.

Anyways, there is a ton of stuff that science can't explain right now, and even more interesting is the stuff that is inherently inexplicable, such as how light (which we have thought of as a wave for the last 100+ years) and matter (which has always been thought of as consisting of particles) both behave as a wave and a particle.

Or what dark matter is made of, or how a singularity (the entire mass of what used to be a star located at a single point with no volume, and consequently infinite density) can possibly exist in a black hole.
May 11 2011 7:00AM
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mattytru
Posts: 2788 - Karma: 5,618
in an ice rink the temp is around 50 most of the time, not below freezing

and there's totally the possibility that the friction could take it above freezing. although if it was simply a shit ton of pressure with a low temperature, the ice would undergo sublimation

hmm
May 11 2011 7:20AM
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Mr.Luke
Posts: 2441 - Karma: 166
well it's true.  The only reason ice feels slippery is because wen you run something across it a thin layer of water forms and makes you slide.
May 11 2011 8:44AM
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DockEllis
Posts: 1131 - Karma: 1,745
interesting thread
May 11 2011 9:30AM
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pomme-de-terre
Posts: 3915 - Karma: 703
lolwut?
May 11 2011 10:01AM
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bakedpow
Posts: 8770 - Karma: 10,467
Its to early for me to comprehend. I will come back in an hour or two...
May 11 2011 10:07AM
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a_pla5tic_bag
Posts: 9215 - Karma: 5,398
actually they've made great strides. it has to do with the formation of new neuronol pathways on pre or post synaptic neurons depending on whether the memory is long/short and implicit/explicit. for short term it's more of an enhanced response in neurons due to uhh... some molecule and catalytic subunits and things.
/bio major


May 11 2011 10:15AM
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RubberSoul
Posts: 11249 - Karma: 14,642
for real, not to discount science, it's man's most noble pursuit IMO and we have done crazy, amazing, clever things, but the notion that some people have that we have everything figured out is absurd

but for my first answer i'm gonna go with "about 75% of biology"
May 11 2011 10:30AM
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Huck_Norris
Posts: 11487 - Karma: 18,627
I just want to know where the other sock goes, personally. 
May 11 2011 10:30AM
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tommyp1ckles
Posts: 1337 - Karma: 55
by definition science has to be willing to change in light of new data,

although at this point we can be very very sure of some things, like we pretty much certainly (99.999999999999%) know like how many electrons certain atoms have or that gravity exists

also im willing to say pure math is certain.
May 11 2011 10:41AM
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RubberSoul
Posts: 11249 - Karma: 14,642
oh i agree believe me-- i work in a bio lab right now, my time on NS is breaks from writing a paper. not discounting science (and certainly not math) at all, just saying people have this idea that we "know" everything about physics, bio etc and it's not really true
May 11 2011 10:44AM
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tommyp1ckles
Posts: 1337 - Karma: 55
yea we're def on the same page, i was just elaborating on what your where saying haha
May 11 2011 11:02AM
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hoodratz47
Posts: 12020 - Karma: 9,475
seeee!
May 11 2011 12:34PM
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RudyGarmisch
Posts: 25443 - Karma: 13,844
No shit we don't know shit, I mean I figured we were doing all this physics shit and sending satellites into space for some reason. = P


I guess I'm just amazed by how fundamental this unknown is. Going through college, I was amazed at how far some of these fields have progressed - to do some cutting edge research, it seemed like you needed 10 years of school and 30 years of working in the field, and a lot of luck.

I'm amazed when I learn stuff like this though, or how we dont have any idea whats out there, just because we havent LOOKED. We estimate we only have identified 1/5th of the worlds invertebrates, with about 4 MILLION insect species still out there that we have no idea about. The bacteria and microbial world has such a small percentage of identified to unidentified species that we may as well be blind.

As a kid you think that the progression of science and broadening our understanding of our world requires tackling huge problems with billion dollar machines... and its not. There are things we encounter on an everyday basis that we have used for centuries, and we still have no idea how they work. Honestly, if nothing else will get you interested in science, its knowing that the frontier of discovery is a lot closer than you think.
May 11 2011 12:58PM
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a.wall
Posts: 339 - Karma: 30
i believe I can explain this...















god.
May 11 2011 12:59PM
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RubberSoul
Posts: 11249 - Karma: 14,642
what the fuck is energy??
May 11 2011 1:17PM
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onenerdykid
Posts: 6657 - Karma: 10,895
in order to say you don't know something, you have to know something first, otherwise you have no basis to say don't know something. you would have to know that you know nothing, which in turn becomes knowledge.

math is a perfect (albeit easy) example of how you can know something with certainty. any apriori knowledge is like this.
May 11 2011 1:24PM
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[~_~]
Posts: 20239 - Karma: 1,273
I'm taking a Philosophy of Religion class right now, and the only thing worse than the fundamentalist Christians are the zealous atheists who always feel the need to claim "we've pretty much proved everything with science."

The more I understand science, the more I realize its limitations.
May 11 2011 1:30PM
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gregorio
Posts: 2372 - Karma: 151
how cells communicate with each other, if we knew that we could cure cancer
May 11 2011 1:34PM
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derbski
Posts: 3173 - Karma: 62
Energy is a scalar quantity with an SI unit of joules (1J= 1kg x m^2/s^2, also equal to a Newton-meter) which quantifies the action of or (in the case of potential energy) the ability to exert a force over a distance. Common forms of energy are electrostatic potential energy, mechanical kinetic energy, mechanical (gravitational, positional, even chemical) potential energy, and massive rest energy (E= mc^2)

Just took my physics final, can you tell?
May 11 2011 3:09PM
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3-6-steeze
Posts: 1135 - Karma: 147
I've been wondering that lately, like it's crazy they can adjust and communicate. I thought i was the only one who didn't know haha
May 11 2011 3:33PM
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k-rob
Posts: 14217 - Karma: 2,891
? this has nothing to do with my post.
May 11 2011 3:34PM
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[evan]
Posts: 5628 - Karma: 117
yea fucking this, cant they just give us a break
May 11 2011 3:39PM
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lineskier10
Posts: 11339 - Karma: 796
uh how about we list things that we do know, it will be a much shorter list
May 11 2011 3:44PM
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feihlination
Posts: 8356 - Karma: 1,084
our biology teacher told us that we were to collect a sip of water from the nearest puddle of rain water (or was it a permanent pond?) its pretty safe that we would discover a handful of new "species" of bacteria/eukariaea (sp?)
May 11 2011 6:29PM
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a_pla5tic_bag
Posts: 9215 - Karma: 5,398
plus, all the "easy" stuff has already been discovered. Like all the stuff you learn in chem/bio and whatnot, it's already figured out, so we have to figure out the harder stuff.
May 12 2011 9:50AM
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yuck
Posts: 8384 - Karma: 2,090
PHOTIC SNEEZE REFLEX!

you may have never heard of it but close to 75% of people have experienced it. when you walk from a dark area into bright light, your eyes adjust quickly and you sneeze. nobody knows why. scientists believe it is because youre optic nerves are close to your sneezing nerves or whatever. so somehow the optic nerve makes you sneeze. i know none of the terminology.
May 12 2011 10:01AM
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spidermanatadesk
Posts: 491 - Karma: 10
inb4 this thread turns into a religious shitstorm...


but until then, this seems like quite a good thread.
I think the next frontier of interesting discoveries will come as we begin to look at our own brains. There is so much we don't know about how our brains work. What is conciousness? How does it come about? How do we store/recall memories? etc. etc... all fucking fascinating.
May 12 2011 10:24AM
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Broseph_Stalin
Posts: 3745 - Karma: 178
mind blown thread right here
May 12 2011 10:25AM
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IanAvery-Leaf
Posts: 9931 - Karma: 9,399
I think about that way too much
May 12 2011 10:41AM
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SmokeyTheBear
Posts: 492 - Karma: 24
Go back and reread it maybe?
May 12 2011 12:10PM
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eldridge
Posts: 2272 - Karma: 47
somewhere bill orielly is saying "I told you so"
May 12 2011 12:21PM
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SeanTom
Posts: 7936 - Karma: 1,747
i'm baked and this is blowing my mind.
May 12 2011 12:23PM
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tuna.
Posts: 2627 - Karma: 111
this.

it's one thing to have science-based beliefs, but to say that "we've proven everything," like so many narrow minded atheists do, is just absurd.
May 12 2011 12:54PM
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Poikenz
Posts: 1480 - Karma: 3,769
pretty sure everything has a gravitational pull.
May 12 2011 12:57PM
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1337
Posts: 31054 - Karma: 29,234
My mind is full of fuck after reading through this thread. So many unanswered questions, so little time
May 12 2011 12:59PM
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a_pla5tic_bag
Posts: 9215 - Karma: 5,398
yeah^ there's a physics equation thats actually easy to use to determine the pull two objects exert on one another. but if something as large as the earth has gravity we can feel (gravity itself is a weak force) then the force of gravity exerted by something so small such as a water molecule must be infinitely small. Since gravity is kind of weak to begin with, thats practically nothing.
May 12 2011 1:02PM
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I_Am_Mod
Posts: 13214 - Karma: 3,753
fundamental interactions, bro !
May 12 2011 1:09PM
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1337
Posts: 31054 - Karma: 29,234
quantum physics ftw
May 12 2011 1:10PM
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Rossberger
Posts: 768 - Karma: 168
Interesting thread. threads.
May 12 2011 1:11PM
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General_Ripper
Posts: 3327 - Karma: 189
I've been told that this is how grad school is for science majors.

You keep learning and learning then all of a sudden everyone's like "I don't know," and basically at the end of grad school no one knows anything (even text books can't help you) and its up to you to figure some shit out.

It's kind of weird to think about it like that.
May 12 2011 1:16PM
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Lord.Quasimoto
Posts: 958 - Karma: 33

we don't understand how markets work.

example - governments still think they can plan economic growth.

May 12 2011 1:57PM
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k-rob
Posts: 14217 - Karma: 2,891
no, you.
May 12 2011 2:51PM
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