RE: [asa] Scientific Mysteries

Dark Energy is darker still.

Why the parameters of nature are what they are.

The extreme temperatures in stellar coronas.

The convective process within the Sun.

How sunspots form.

Why the solar cycle is 11 years, and why this period varies.

Hypernova and the details to gamma ray bursts (GRBs).

The origin of cosmic rays.

Why a variety of quantum events are what they are.

How the planets formed in our solar system, and others

Are there other universes?

Here's a funny one: What is the true color of the Sun (as seen by an
observer from space with appropriate attenuation of sunlight)? I have had
a lot of fun with this one. "The Sun Ain't Yeller" is the cry of the
heliochromologist, though the Sun is officially classified as a yellow
dwarf, G2V. [This issue is simply a crumb that has fallen from the
astronomy cutting table, however.] [The Sun is a white only star, no hint
of yellow, orange, etc. Our atmosphere is ideally suited to give us the
beautiful color changes observed.]

Do protoplanets appear without form and void, and do early stellar accretion
disks appear watery blue? [M-Gensis plug, see Luke 11:8 J]

"Coope"

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Opderbeck
Sent: Wednesday, June 11, 2008 8:53 AM
To: ASA list
Subject: [asa] Scientific Mysteries

What are some paradoxes / mysteries / contradictions that the natural
science have not yet been able to resolve concerning the natural world?

For example:

-- why are the pioneer space probes off course, given what we know from
Newton and Einstein about gravity?
(http://www.planetary.org/about/press/news/2008/0516_Newton_Einstein_Lost_in
_Space.html)

-- what is the "dark matter" or force that fills up the empty spaces in the
expanding universe?

This isn't to look for "gaps" or something like that. I think it would be
helpful to illustrate that there are paradoxes and anomalies that science
hasn't yet figured out about the natural world, just as there are paradoxes
and anomalies that theology and Biblical studies haven't yet figured out
with respect to faith -- every field of human inquiry has its paradoxes and
anomalies.

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Associate Professor of Law
Seton Hall University Law School
Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology 
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