10 Things About the World Physicists Can't Explain

Science is a helpful tool to explain the world around us. Observation, experimentation, and some intuition all go into determining how and why everything works the way it does. But because of the way science works, there are always going to be aspects of the universe it can't account for, simply because we don't yet have enough information....

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[johnchedsey]

All this stuff reminds me of what Douglas Adams wrote in the Hitchhiker books (and I'll paraphrase): If we ever finally do learn the true nature of the universe, it'll immediately vanish and be replaced with something even more inexplicable.

[romanfilzbiber]

I can only agree to what someone else in the comments already said: We NEED T-Shirts that have "The concept of dimensions gets more and more complex the higher you get" printed on them. Get on it, Blaze Boy!

[bethmoore]

“Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, into the future” Some physicist named Steve Miller

[gaba_goblin]

"the concept of dimensions gets more and more complex the higher you get"

Tell me about it 🔥🌲🍄👁️ 😂😂

[FairbrookWingates]

91 billion light years + one inch: literally the existential crisis of my childhood. I read about the "size of the universe" at some young age and immediately had this question. The utter inability to wrap my head around any potential answer, generally just wandering in mental circles, made me shiver at times. It also made me really curious and love science...so a win for stress formed resilience, I suppose!

[JayeEllis]

Simon, Scientific theory is entirely different than the colloquial usage of the word 'theory.'
"In everyday use, the word "theory" often means an untested hunch, or a guess without supporting evidence.
But for scientists, a theory has nearly the opposite meaning. A theory is a well-substantiated explanation of an aspect of the natural world that can incorporate laws, hypotheses and facts."

[thomasdarby]

I can explain the 5th Dimension! They had a great hit back in 1969, "Age of Aquarius."

[ericblair]

"The concept of dimensions gets more and more complex the higher you get" - "Blaze" Boy

[dongately]

#1 - The popularity of the Kardashians

[drphosferrous]

Gravity isn't really a force. More like an effect caused by mass existing in spacetime. If it's relatively weak, then maybe it's because the overall quantity of mass is small compared to space time. It would make sense if some times had little to no mass in existence.

Here's another trippy thing: orbits, ballistic curves, and falling bodies are all essentially straight lines at a constant velocity, bent and changed by mass's curverature on space-time.😋

[michaelgallagher]

The 5th Dimension has String Theory & a great Horn section.

[brianedwards]

Metal Whiskers sounds like the title of an Isaac Asimov robot story.

[johnlindsey]

"We could be in a turtle's dream in outer space"

-- Frank Reynolds

[ComaDave]

"Science knows it doesn't know everything, otherwise it'd stop." - Dara O'Briain.

In other news - I am actually a Boltzmann brain and all of this is merely a random fluctuating quantum probability. One example of this, is that I realised that the only word that can define itself is the word "word".

[pirateadam]

Future scientists: We finally have an answer to all of these, and understand the fundamental one-ness of the universe!
Me: Yeah, that's cool. Now... where 👏 is 👏 my 👏 hoverboard 👏 ?!

[trj]

Another excellent episode. Thankyou TT team.

[johnstevenson]

That does bring up a question that has nagged me for a while. If the observable universe is 92, 000, 000, 000 light years across, but only 13, 800, 000, 000 years old, wouldn't that imply that the outermost stars traveled at more than 3 times the speed of light to get there?

[EntropyAll]

Great video but I would suggest that you're using the layman's version of 'theory' in a science video is confusing and adds credibility to science deniers who claim "it's only a theory" when trying to deny scientific facts.

In layman's terms, a theory is an educated guess given a limited set of facts and a reasonable understanding of the topic or a rational conclusion based on limited evidence. Examples: a detective has a theory on who robbed the bank or the football coach has a theory how another team might be cheating.

In science that's a hypothesis. Whenever science looks at a topic and makes assumptions or guesses as to what's going on given a limited amount of information, it's called a hypothesis. Once a hypothesis is created, then it can be tested and proved right or proved wrong. It may take generations to collect the data or for science to advance to the point that a hypothesis can be adequately tested, but still until proved right or wrong, it remains a hypothesis.

In science, a theory is way past an educated guess, a theory is something that's been proved correct beyond any reasonable doubt and has stood the test of time and constant attempts by scientists to prove it wrong. Theories can be used to make predictions that need to be born out, which is a constant way of testing and verifying a theory. Every time that you use google maps on your smart phone, you’re testing the theory of relativity and proving it correct.

People assume that scientists are 'all in' on pushing theories as truth without caring if they're really true but nothing could be further from the truth. The quickest and easiest way to fame and fortune for a scientist is to disprove something that's been fundamentally accepted as truth by the science community. Think Richard Hawking’s who made his fame by proving that the universe wasn't static or Kenneth Page Oakley, Sir Richard Wilfrid Edward Le Gros Clark and Joseph Wiener proving that Piltdown Man was a fraud.

Disproving a scientific theory would be a momentous and historic achievement that every scientist dreams of accomplishing.

To be fair, scientists themselves sometimes use the word theory when they mean hypothesis, and in ancient times, before a rigorous scientific method was defined, things that hadn't been proved were called theories and later disproved. But in the modern era of science, no major theory has been disproved. The riggers of becoming a theory are simply too stringent for something untrue to make it through.

[beachboy]

Excellent video.
'Glass is a state of matter'
Solid, liquid, gas, plasma and glass?

[pamelamays]

Metal whiskers: one way to describe Simon's beard.🧔🧔🧔🧔🧔