Talk:List of unsolved problems in physics/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Archive 4

Galaxy rotation problem

To claim that this is a separate problem from dark matter is strange indeed. I am going to remove it again, but please let me know if anyone has any objections and from whence they originate. Joshuaschroeder 06:34, 15 May 2005 (UTC)

Ohwilleke 00:14, 30 July 2005 (UTC) Joshuaschroeder removed a MOND reference arguing that it was fringe science. In fact, it has been the subject of about a two hundred peer reviewed journal articles [1] since the theory was forumulated, some as recently as 2005, by PhD physicists in respected universities and institutes. While I agree that it is a minority viewpoint, it is hardly fringe science. Indeed, it has a far better record of empirical success than supersymmetry, string theory, LQQ or any other number of theories that are in the Wiki, and given that this is a NPOV Wiki, it is not appropriate to wipe out references to all non-fringe minority views. To be really neutral, one ought to be talking about the Galaxy rotation problem and the lensing issues, rather than dark matter per se, as the former are phenomena which are not fully explained (dark matter is not a complete theory as it lacks a discovered particle or an explanation for why it is distributed as it is) while the latter is merely a theory to explain these phenomena.

MOND is minority and is generally advocated by a very small handful of scientists, its successes notwithstanding. The major question is "What is Dark Matter?" With apologies to the MOND people, I think this parametrizes the question very well. If it turns out that Dark Matter is just a gravitational theory effect, well then the answer will be "Dark Matter doesn't exist". Placing it squarely with the galaxy rotation problem is a bit limiting too since there are more observations that dark matter/MOND must deal with than just rotating galaxies. --71.57.90.3 21:05, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

The template

The template on this page is kind of a self-reference. Anywhere else we can put it? Andre (talk) 00:28, May 30, 2005 (UTC)

Your right, I think this talk page is a good home for it. - SimonP 03:06, 10 June 2005 (UTC)

matter and antimatter

if there are the same amount of antimatter and matter, the universe would just be left with annihilation between matter and antimatter everyday, and at the end, radiation and energy would be the only things left in the universe.

Not necessarily. Matter and antimatter require very close contact before they can do anything. Stars and galaxies are really, extremely, very far apart. Tzarius 05:26, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

It would annihilate against the interstellar medium. Not that this has anything to do with the article... -- CYD

In fact, this is the basis behind a whole field of cosmology, as well as the exploration of potential CP violation - i.e., the possibility that certain particles lack antiparticles and thus do not anihilate. -- AJA

or are they?

Imagine the matter and anti-matter present as a sine wave. They both are present in equal quantities and have been pulled out of their superposition when the universe was created into a ground state so their collisions don't take place. I have a lot more on this topic. Please feel free to contact me by email Dhillonv —Preceding undated comment was added at 03:35, 26 January 2009 (UTC).

Contrived questions

Some of the question formulations in this article seem fairly contrived and forced. For example:

• Fusion power: Is it possible to construct a practical nuclear reactor that is powered by nuclear fusion rather than nuclear fission?

This doesnt seem like one of the great unanswered questions in physics at all. There are plenty of examples of fusion reactors found in nature, they are called stars. Making a device which harnesses a well-known process to physics falls far more into the realm of engineering than great unanswered questions.

Furthermore any question in the form: "Is it possible to construct.." has only two possible answers: YES and NO. Supposed the answer was YES. Are any scientists now satisfied with that answer or the question? The actual problem is of course not if it "is possible to" solve something (which is just yes/no) but the solution itself.

Here's another example:

• Grand unification theory: Can the laws of physics be unified?

Is that really a helpful entry? It doesnt address any real problem and seems like the question formulation was a forced after thought to the subject matter. As is typical of Wikipedia, the content is clearly symptomatic of many small disjoint additions. I think this page needs a rewrite listing fewer problems and a paragraph giving each a brief background of the current situation and from where the problem originates. Here is the format that I had in mind.

Magnetic Monopoles Current equations in electromagnetic theory treat the Electric Field and Magnetic Field symmetrically except for the presence of an electric charge and the absence of a magnetic charge. The existance of a magnetic monopole would give an elegant balance to these equations and is predicted by several grand unified theories. So far a magnetic monopole has never been experimentally observed.

No need for a literal question to give rise to the problem. 129.42.208.182 20:23, 19 July 2005 (UTC)

I don't think the page is in nearly as rough shape as you suggest. It is nice to have a reasonable, succinct list with links to fuller articles.

While I agree with your criticism of the wording of the fusion reactor question, understanding the properties of plasmas in the laboratory (or indeed, astrophysical plasmas such as active galactic nuclei, is a major field of research in physics – not engineering! – and ought to be included in some form.

As for the grand unification theory, this is symptomatic of the current state of high energy physiccs. There are a number of questions, ranging (along the axis from gravity to particle physics) from quantum gravity, through string theory, through supersymmetry, through grand unification theory, through proton decay, through the standard model to quantum chromodynamics. All these questions are closely interrelated, although they all probe the same problem, which is that we don't understand quantum gravity/high energy physics/non-perturbative gauge theory. –Joke137 18:35, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Made up question

Somebody made up the following question: Void problem

What happens when an object is inserted to a complete void? If an area in our universe was to have no air, light, radiation, magnetism, gravity and all other forms of visible and invisible portions of our universe would this area be infinite, would objects in this area stop existing?

I am going to get rid of it; any questions?--TriTertButoxy (talk) 14:51, 14 July 2008 (UTC)

I admit the question is awkwardly posed, but what in the heck is being asked about? --Neptunerover (talk) 04:17, 17 December 2009 (UTC)

Magnetic Monopoles

There is nothing in physics that requires or suggests the existence of magnetic monopoles. E and B are components of an antisymmetric tensor and that is all there is to their 'symmetry'. Aoosten (talk) 20:21, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Uhh, there's the standard model requirements and the usefulness for charge quantization models. There's a reason why they're still under intense research. SamuelRiv (talk) 23:01, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

Convince me. As far as I know the magnetic monopole is not part of the standard model, whereas charge quantization models are not physics (yet). No one needs it but it's existence, like that of any flying spaghetti particle, is hard to disprove. Aoosten (talk) 23:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

gravity waves, accelerating universe

User:CYD reverted some recent edits to the gravity wave and accelerating universe problems. I like them in their current version because:

• For the accelerating universe, we know our universe isn't supersymmetric, and we know that the scale of supersymmetry breaking is high enough that it is not clear that supersymmetry helps at all to keep the cosmological constant small.
• For gravity waves, see above.

Please discuss your changes on talk, if they were intentional. –Joke137 18:26, 20 July 2005 (UTC)

Zero point energy

Would zero point energy be an example of an Unsolved problem in physics even though it is considered a pseudoscience? (Honest question) - UnlimitedAccess 09:01, 10 August 2005 (UTC)

I don't think so. It seems more of a conjecture as a possible result of a particular theory, like 'negative mass'. It might be real, but it hasn't been encountered and it doesn't really affect anything besides theory that posits it. Tzarius 09:14, 11 August 2005 (UTC)

Certain measurements of zero-point energy have already been carried out, see Casmir effect. So given that there is a theory for it (namely quantum mechanics), and some experimental verificaton of the theory, I don't think it is very unsolved. Kenta2 01:01, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

Spintronics, quantum computers

Is "is there a way to use this (known real) phenomenon in a device" really an unsolved physics problem? At best, it sounds like an unsolved engineering problem. Ken Arromdee 20:59, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

it is a physics problem in that the issue facing the "quantum computer scientist" is whether or not such a construct would be allowed under the rules of quantum mechanics and, if so, would be useful as a computer (in the tradiational sense). For example, it is not possible with a quantum computer (the abstract, as of course no such device has been constructed) to do a simple addition operation; the probabilistic nature of quantum states means that there are no deterministic binary operations in these systems. However, the device might be useful for (the standard example) encryption, since it is impossible to read a message incrypted in a quantum bit without the recipient knowing that it has been read. --AJA

I don't believe that this is still an "unsolved problem." A seven-bit quantum computer has been constructed that could factor the number 15 using Shor's algorithm. This is not an unsolved physics problem--it is a solved engineering problem. --Sxeraverx 15:57, 21 May 2006 (UTC)

A great deal of physisists are spending their time working on it right now. I would call it on that grounds alone an unsolved physics problem. The nature of their research is in developing more usefull tools for solving it, in the condensed matter fields. Before the transistor was invented you might have called creating it an "unsolved problem", why not the quantum computing equivelent?

Because the transistor not being created yet was an unsolved ENGINEERING, not PHYSICS, problem. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.37.218 (talk) 09:06, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

The above is wrong--whether the universe can implement large-scale quantum computation (and seven bits doesn't count as large scale) is not at all established, i.e. it's still very much a physics question, not just engineering. See: S. Aaronson. Multilinear Formulas and Skepticism of Quantum Computing,[2] to appear in SIAM Journal of Computing. Also in STOC 2004, pp. 118-127 (link from here) for some discussion. 76.197.56.242 (talk) 06:05, 15 August 2008 (UTC)

The papers cited present hypotheses on the breakdown of quantum mechanics, not true theories (I would argue the same for string theory, but nobody would let that fly), in that they do not completely follow from first principles of QM. In such a case, I would say that while there may be a dispute as to how QC theory will scale, this seeks resolution in engineering and experiment alongside the development of QC (in essence, it is the same as the problem of building stable qubits in the first place). The theory itself is sound and corresponds perfectly with experiment currently, which means the theory is not an "unsolved problem". SamuelRiv (talk) 02:33, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

More Basic Problems

There are more basic laws of physics that have been discovered, accepted, and built upon, but never understood. Why are they not mentioned?

The list of Conservation law and Newton's Laws of Motion are examples of these.

For example, there has never been an explanation for the Newton's 3rd Law: Law of Reciprocal Actions which states that, for every force, there is an equal and opposite force. This is the fundamental principle that allows rockets to launch since, to lift the mass of a rocket, you must expel a higher amount of matter (fuel) in the opposite direction.

But...why is this so? Why must there be an opposite reaction? And the answer that is often returned from physicists is "So there's conservation of momentum." This is circular logic and an example of many unexplained phenomena in physics that should be mentioned here.

These are much more basic questions that have never been explained other than stating that "They simply are." Captainks 17:25, 21 October 2005 (UTC)

It should be noted first off that physics is, in essence, an empirical science; although there is a fad nowadays to try and find a holistic, unifying explanation for all observed phenomena, it must be remembered that ultimately any such explanation relies on some set of axioms, some group of statements that must be taken as true without deeper explanation, even if they are as simple as "matter exists." However, as to the question just raised, these "simpler" laws of physics suffer from quite a common misrepresentation: they are described as being true on all levels, for all objects, at all times. Unfortunately, this is misleading. The law of conservation of energy, for example, is, on almost all levels, true; however, when certain particles decay, there is a brief period of time during which there exists an object called a W boson, which possesses a very high rest energy, much higher than the original decaying particle. In other words, this high-energy object appears out of nothingness, briefly violating the conservation of energy, then shortly thereafter returns to nothingness, restoring the balance.

If it happens within a unit of planck time then it isn't violating the conservation of energy. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.53.37.218 (talk) 09:15, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

For a less esoteric example, Newton's Third law is true for forces of all types. Ultimately, the law underlying this is the conservation not of momentum, but of energy (although conservation of momentum is usually used on macroscales because energy can sneak away as thermal, chemical and electromagnetic energy during physical reactions). Ultimately, if we accept the axiom, integral to physics, that there is a fixed amount of energy in existence, then Newton's Third Law will follow for any isolated system.

So in summary, the more basic problems you've noticed are in fact little approximations of convenience; they are called laws because they are so very, very often true. The whole construct of physics is based on observations, so ultimately we can't ever provide a complete logical explanation without reference to some observed 'fact,' those axioms I keep mentioning; those are the things that "simply are," without which it becomes impossible to attempt to understand the physical world. --AJA

Newton's Laws? Easy -- the principle of stationary action. The principle of stationary action? Easy, Feynman's path integral formulation. As stated above, we will always explain one thing in terms of a (hopeuflly) simpler (in terms of elegance, probably not mathematics) theory. But there will always be some fundamental assumption, even if that is "the universe has physical laws". Masud 14:56, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I think the contributors here miss a central point. Conservation laws result from symmetries. While the statement that Newton's laws can be encoded from the principle of stationary action is correct, the real issue concerns the symmetries the action possesses. For example, the conservation of momentum results from translational invariance in the underlying action. Sometimes symmetries that appear exact, on further inspection or not. Sometimes it is useful to postulate an approximate symmetry and examine the interactions that violate this symmetry through the violation of the predicted conservation law. In this case the conservation law is only approximate. As we probe higher energies, violations of certain symmetries can appear, rendering the conservation law associated with it invalid. Sometimes higher energies can reveal new symmetries that were absent at the lower energy scales and give us new conservation laws. There are many examples of this in physics. What the high energy physicist seeks are the symmetries of new interactions that dictate the dynamics involved.

Deleted

I've deleted the black hole "problem". Black holes have been identified as real for some time now.

The black hole line was put in there by User:Ems57fcva, who on his own page claims that he strongly dislikes black holes, and who is working on a new theory that changes Einstein's theory of relativity while protesting that he is not doing so--in short, he's a crackpot whose crackpot theories motivate him to over-emphasize scientific uncertainty about black holes. Which itself doesn't mean the line is wrong, but it certainly does explain it.

Scientists may disagree somewhat about unobserved properties of the objects that have been identified as black holes, but those disagreements aren't about qualities so fundamental that they are disagreements about whether the objects are black holes at all.

It's true that nobody has seen a singularity, but the fact that nobody has actually seen something doesn't make its existence an unsolved problem, since there's little dispute that it in fact exists. It's like saying that whether the Earth has a metal core is an "unsolved problem" because we haven't actually seen the core, just deduced its existence. Ken Arromdee 23:28, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Their are a couple of articles floating around positing other explanations for blackholes - a new scientist one I saw a few months back suggested that "observed" black holes were actually a unique type of quasar. Is their alot of this sort of thing, or is this just the fringe? I Would say my own experience suggests most physists in the field believe it, the difficulty is that they wouldn't be in the field if they didn't buy GR.

This deletion is unjustified. Read Schwarzschilds own original papers (see http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0402088 for an English translation). I vote for their nonexistence but see for yourself. Ems57fcva has a point that all we have seen are supermassive objects. We don't know what is inside of them, just that they have accretion disks. The fact that you think Ems57fcva is a crackpot is an "argumentum ad hominem". The fact that so many people do not consider this an unsolved problem can be offset against the overwhelming probability that NONE of them read Schwarzschilds original papers. The metal core example does not hold water. Black holes (the GR ones) have NOT been directly observed. Magnets, even large ones, are not theory but fact and the Earth's magnetic field requires one. What else could it be but iron. Aoosten (talk) 23:43, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Motion

I've also deleted the motion line. There is no serious dispute among scientists about what causes the perihelion advance of Mercury; that is well known as being a consequence of Einstein's Theory of Relativity. Similarly, relativity says that there is no such thing as absolute motion; there is no serious dispute about that either. Describing these as "problems" is wrong and is probably yet another crackpot taking aim at Einstein. Ken Arromdee 02:39, 1 November 2005 (UTC)

Reverting most of that change. Here we go again.

• Einstein said that absolute motion doesn't exist. Claiming that whether absolute motion exists is an "unsolved problem" is crackpottery claiming that Einstein is wrong.
• Newton's laws say that an object in motion remains in motion. Moving stars need no power source, and even Einstein didn't say that they do. Claiming that the power source of moving stars is an unsolved problem is more crackpottery.
• There is little dispute among scientists today that the objects we call black holes are black holes, even if we can't see inside one. It is only an unsolved problem to cranks, who have their own strange theories which are contradicted by scientific acceptance of black holes.

Ken Arromdee 17:43, 12 November 2005 (UTC)

• According to the platonic philosophy, relativity cannot be wrong. IMO modern "physics" is pure math with very little reality in it. --QuantumDynamo 06:26, 13 November 2005 (UTC)

And how useful your opinion is... -- CYD

Section Titles

Shouldn't some of the points in "Theoretical ideas in search of experimental evidence" rather be in "Phenomena in search of an explanation" ? E.g the ones about Quantum Mechanics or QCD. Alternatively, one could introduce a new heading " Theories in need of expansion" or similar.

Feegle 18:35, 20 January 2006 (UTC)

Cold Fusion?! Ball lighting ?

Cold Fusion? At least in high energy physics that's treated as a plain joke. It has been proved that cold fusion doesn't occur. Why is it here? Is it taken seriously by any scientist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.13.252.228 (talk • contribs)

Below is a copy of the debate in Talk:low energy nuclear reaction. The issue is still unresolved, so any input is appreciated. Pcarbonn 22:17, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Deglr6328 deleted cold fusion from the list, saying "when it is not even agreed upon whether a purported phenomenon exists within the realm of actual physics it is not proper to frame it as a question physics has to solve". I responded by saying: "The DOE report says that this is a valid area of scientific investigation". (see cold fusion).

Deglr6328 removed the "unsolved problem in physics" in low energy nuclear reaction on the ground that "DOEs views on the matter are utterly irrelevant. framing the question in this manner gives implicit approval of the question's status and respectability when there is none at all".

The question of the relevance of DOE's view was heavily debated on the cold fusion page (see Talk page, "DOE policy"), and eventually DOE's view was kept in the intro of that article. The reasons for giving it such a prominence are the following: DOE is the last (and probably only) published scientific review of the matter, and DOE's 2004 review was largely quoted by the popular and scientific press, including Nature. Actually, DOE's review is by far the most quoted review on the subject, by skeptics and LENR researchers alike. If you still believe that DOE's view is irrelevant, I would suggest that you raise the issue in the talk page of cold fusion.

The phrasing is : "What is the explanation for the apparent production of excess heat and helium in palladium metal when it is saturated with deuterium?". I have explicitly added the word "apparent" to express that it is not recognized by everybody. Also the question is very open, so that the source could be chemical, nuclear (or even fraud). I'm open to change in the phrasing, but I believe it is pretty good already.

Pcarbonn 06:26, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Another evidence that cold fusion is a valid scientific research area is that, in March 2006, the American Physical Society held a session on cold fusion in Baltimore (See 2006 APS March meeting [3]). Pcarbonn 14:08, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Deglr6328 has removed the "unsolved problem in physics" again, saying "no convincing evidence presented". Please explain why the evidences above are not convincing ? Could you give convincing evidence that DOE's view are irrelevant ? That there is no status and respectability to the question ? Please engage in the debate to justify your action. Pcarbonn 21:45, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

I guess the question is about what we want to include in this "Unsolved problem in physics" article. Should ball lighting be part of it, although "it is not even agreed upon whether it exists within the realm of actual physics" (the article says "Scientists disagree on whether it is a real phenomenon.") ? If yes, then I do not understand why cold fusion would not be part of it too, especially if it is a recognized area of research by the APS and by physicists who made the effort of reviewing the current status of the issue (such as the DOE reviewers) (which is not the case of ball lightning). Any input welcome. Pcarbonn 22:17, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

Cold Fusion is a true exercise of quackery. Here is what Robert Park, a prominent member of the American Physical Society, has to say about this subject. (VooDoo Science [4]). --Bhana 20:34, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Why you deleted?

Hi! Why you are deleted my contributions about the Earth precession? Thank you for response. abel 22:11, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

I'm assuming the deleter deleted it because this is not an unsolved problem. This is pretty well understood. ErikHaugen 06:06, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Pioneer anomaly:

I suggest this should be deleted as it's a local engineering problem, not a problem of fundamental physics. Comments?

A local engineering problem ? If it was just that, there would not be so much interest in this topic. So I believe that there is enough evidence that some scientists believe it could be more than that, including new physics.

Whether the topic should be listed in this article depends on what this article is about. To me, it's not clear what this article should talk about: should it list all the subjects that physicists are working on ? The list could be long ! Should it be limited to the "top" issues ? Yes, but then we would need a source for this, instead of relying on the opinions of the wikipedians. I looked for lists of unsolved issues in physics on the internet, and there are several, but they do not agree on the top issues. So maybe we should make a separate article for each source. Otherwise, this article will be endlessly debated. Pcarbonn 14:35, 17 June 2006 (UTC)

Most likely the problem exists only since the guys who work on the problem just don't want to find the solution. The solution is supplied by Einstein's theory of 1915. It is in its math. I told them about it and how it predicts the 'anomaly' with a prediction that is off only by less than half of standard deviation from what they observe.

The solution is (c sqrt(4 pi G rho)) where c = 3x10^8, pi = 3.14, G = 6.7x10^(-11), and rho = 6.5x10^(-27) the density of space of the universe, all in "engineering" units. It is just the formula for relativistic dynamical friction and it's even the same for photons, observed for already over 70 years in form of Hubble's redshift.

So they don't even have a good excuse why they don't apply Einstein's physics. They just said "they don't believe it" without even looking into it. Unfortunately I have only a degree in engineering so I'm not an authority on GR. And I don't know why GR supplies such exact prediction. I just calculated it using Einstein's physics so I knew that it could be calculated and I wondered why the guys who were paid for doing it didn't.

Apparently the problem is that astrophysicists use only Newtonian physics "with corrections for relativistic effects". And the effect is purely relativistic but not a one for which Newtonian physics was ever corrected. Mathematicians ignored dynamical friction of photons because they considered it 'negligible' and so they didn't correct for it the equations the astrophysicists use in their calculations. So the problem might be never solved unless astrophysicists start learning Einstein's physics to be able to solve such simple problems directly as I did. So this one is not really a physical problem but a sociological one. Unfortunately nothing can be done since there is no communication between scientists and engineers who can't publish anything in "scientific journals" since what engineers discover "isn't interesting to physicists" even if true (as editors of Phys. Rev. Lett. told me).

Like for instance a fact that the universe isn't expanding. Or like when CMBR was discovered by Penzias and Willson around 1960's I knew already about the universe being 3K cool since the radio engineers discovered "background noise" many years earlier and atributed it to the "average temperature of the universe", apparently at that time a fact not known yet to physicists. Similarly as now they don't know why the space probes slow down despite that it is required by the standard physics they are supposed to know (if stupid engineers may know it). Jim 02:29, 11 November 2006 (UTC)

Einsteinian physics have been referenced as applied, according to some sources. Also, if your explanation is accurate, why has the effect been reported as seen only in the Pioneers, and not the Voyagers, which are tri-axial stabilized, rather than spin-stabilized? --Chr.K. (talk) 11:15, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Is there a reliable source claiming that the Pioneer problem does not exist? Otherwise, the four stars on it should be deleted. Jim's explanation above is obviously OR, whether it's correct or not. --Roentgenium111 (talk) 16:39, 28 July 2009 (UTC)

Flyby anomaly

I don't know too much about it, but flyby anomy is in the category of unsolved problems in physics. So why should'nt it appear here ? Even if it might be caused, by conventional physics, there is a bunch of probmlems related with gravity (pioneernomy, dark matter (ie anomalous dynamics of galaxies and gravitational lensing) dark energy. So i think this unexplained yet phenomena should be included into this list...) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.83.3.245 (talk) 10:14, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

From the flyby anomaly article, it seems like a legitimate problem for the astronomy section. I don't know much about these anomalies with probes, other than that it's an extremely complicated system and probably something wasn't taken into account all the way. That's why I feel like the Pleiades problem and this should go into a separate article for unsolved problems in astronomy, which has a lot of problems closer to engineering and observation technique than physics. SamuelRiv 13:01, 14 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think that every tiny unexplained measurement should enter here. At most, we may have a general "astronomical anomalies" paragraph. Dan Gluck 18:41, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

I think that, following the publication of the paper Special relativity may account for the spacecraft flyby anomalies, we should at least give the flyby anomaly 4 stars as an admission that some experts do not believe any anomaly exists once Special Relativity has been fully taken into account. Dave Higgins, 86.148.32.255 (talk) 22:47, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Quantum Teleportation

It seems to me that quantum teleportation is still very much a mystery. How can a particle instantly teleport from here to the center of the multiverse? h0riz0n 16:23, 19 August 2006 (UTC)

Good question. actually, though, quantum physics is based on the assumption that all standard physics laws are tossed out the window at the subatomic level, so while it doesn't make sense to us at our level of the physical realm, it does make sense according to the laws of quantum physics. 63.16.141.115 20:17, 16 September 2006 (UTC)

I would put that under unification of gravity and QM. It's pretty clearly solved by any quantum theory of gravity - either it can't happen, or it can and GR is wrong.

Not wrong so much as incomplete, much in the same way as Newtonian physics isn't "wrong" but just incomplete because it doesn't work at high speeds and at the quantum level.--99.31.222.73 (talk) 08:34, 19 August 2009 (UTC)

Phenomena or established occurrences

I don't see sufficient difference between these terms to have them both in the header. I think Phenomena can encompass both. - 64.228.218.247 16:05, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

Charge

Charge: What gives quarks charge, why do different particles have different denominations of it, and why do opposite charges attract?

I suppose this question means to ask "why do quarks have the hypercharge, SU(2), and/or color charges that they do". That's a great unanswered question. However, we know why opposite (electric) charges attract. Given the interactions that define the charge (you must have these for a charge to exist), you can calculate the potential between two charged objects and show explicitly that the force between oppositely charged objects is attractive. I therefore propose to remove the last clause in the sentence. HEL 00:22, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

There, I was bold and did it. HEL 00:24, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

Broken external link

This external link is broken (article can't be found), so I removed it from the main article. I'm not sure what it could refer to, since the dark matter problem is not actually solved... HEL 00:29, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

• Dark Matter - one problem solved

Accelerating universe

This is not an unsolved problem anymore. Over 20 years ago it has been found out that both, expansion and its acceleration are only apparent. It turned out that Einstein's gravitation can explain more than comologists thought since there is more limitations placed on curvatures of spacetime than cosmologists are willing to admit. So it is just argument between cosmologists and astrophysicists in which cosmologists still have upper hand because they control the sientific journals. The cosmologists don't allow valitity of conservation of energy while astrophysicists insist on it. According to Einstein's gravitation (in astrophysical version) the numbers for apparent expansion for curvature of space $1/R=1/4.1Gpc^{-1}$ are $H_{0}=73km/s/Mpc$ and $dH/dt=2.7\times 10^{-36}s^{-2}$. Jim 09:40, 18 November 2006 (UTC)

Heavy bias in favor of particle physics

This article as it currently stands is too heavily biased in favor of particle physics. Gibimi 19:02, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Disagree. In my mind, particle physics is physics (ok, cosmology too, but they're basically the same thing when you get right down to it). Everything else is applications of physics. So I think that things like turbulence only have a marginal place on this page. I understand, however, that not everyone shares this view... --Strait 19:15, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

Pioneer Anomaly

According to General Reativity it is an effect of curvature of space causing dynamical friction a = c²/R, where c is speed of light and R is raduis of curvature of space. It happens to be also the reason for the Hubble redshift producing therefore Hubble constant of H₀ = c/R. 217.153.176.243 22:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Entropy

Are the statements under unsolved problems - Entropy really unsolved? Surely the reason entropy was lower in the past is because that’s how we define it. Its like asking why was the minute hand of my watch was 90 degrees behind where it is now 15 minutes ago. Its because that’s how we define it.

As for the questions about the arrow of time, that isn't specifically to do with entropy but observation. Time would seem the same to us whether it went "forward or backward". To put it another was asking why time runs forward is like people in a car heading north asking why the north pole is always getting closer. Its not its just that as you roll along it seems to.

I hope that’s clear and not too philosophical. Ill move the entropy link down so its in the right place alphabetically and if no one objects Ill delete it in a few days. CaptinJohn 17:13, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

No one has objected so Ive deleted it! CaptinJohn 09:38, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

I replaced the section in question for various reasons. First, the definition of entropy is based on what we observe, the question itself is asking why we observe what we observed. The question is intrinsically philosophical in nature, but nonetheless an unsolved problem (close to asking "why do we exist?" or "what is the meaning of life?"). I also don't think it's as simple as saying "we can't tell if time is moving forwards or backwards." The question posed notes that because of this shift in entropy, there is a clear distinction between the past and the future. Again, I am no theoretical physicist, but it seems to me that the question is valid as was posed by an expert in the field. Also, I think the reason your deletion went unchallenged was that not many editors confident and knowledgable in the field venture into this page often enough. So before removing items that can be contested from these pages, I think it best to give it more than just a few days (or it might be missed altogether). --Stux 13:03, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

The level of Entropy is directly exponentially proportional to time. Please prove me wrong. - Krane —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.167.31.130 (talk) 10:52, 14 June 2008 (UTC)

Proof by counterexample: every time I freeze a tray of ice cubes, I decrease entropy (since crystallization is an increase in orderliness). Physicists avoid incorrect statements like yours by using mathematical and physical rigor. David (talk) 23:08, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

You decrease entropy within the system. But your system isn't isolated. The overall amount of entropy in the universe has increased. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.82.106.151 (talk) 18:30, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

Zeno's paradoxes

I often hear that there are theoretical solutions for Zeno's paradoxes, but I myself have never understood them enough to consider the paradoxes solved, instead of only explained. I'd like to hear from an expert about the status of Zeno's paradoxes in contemporary conceptions. Cibele c 23:10, 9 April 2007 (UTC)

First, that's math or phylosophy rather than physics. Second, the solution is given by the calculus of infinitesemals. See in particular the concept of Limit (mathematics). Dan Gluck 10:09, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

But isn't the concept of limit a description of the paradox (an argument which gets closer and closer to a limit and never reaches it) rather than a solution (a proof that the paradox is kind of a "mind trick" because it is indeed possible to reach the limit, to "jump" all the infinite distance between A and B and actually reach B)?

That it is just a mind trick is known to all of us, because we do this every day lots of times. On the other hand, this phenomenon is accurately described by the concept of "limit". So where is the paradox or puzzle? If there still is a puzzle, then it belongs to phylosophy rather than physics. Dan Gluck 19:53, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

That it should be known to all of us was known by Zeno - he didn't elaborate the paradoxes for a lack of experience in moving from A to B. That doesn't mean I agree with his denial of directly-experienced reality and nature with its movements because of a rational bug (the empirical denial of the sensitive evidence), but it's fair to admit that he detected an absurd situation from which it's difficult or maybe impossible to get out. Just like in the paradoxes themselves. About the limits, as far as I know (and as you've just said) they describe the paradox instead of invalidating it as a paradox - like describing a case in which 1 is equal to 2 instead of saying that 1=2 is false. If I'm wrong, I beg your kindness or someone's else to explain me how it invalidates the paradox, in other words: how it explains the "magical infinite jump". I'd pay for it.

I really wish I could tell you why this is not a "simply-philosophical" matter without this petulant reply attitude, and what has been recently written about it that may have an unexpected importance to physics. And yet I'd be glad to get into this "physics x philosophy" frequent argument, this artificial dicothomy, as if there were defined fields of exploration for each, and even as if there were physics and philosophy instead of a formless effort on natural investigation. Don't take it personally, I like your bad mood. And I mean it when I say we should talk. You won't give me a no - wilt thou, milord? (If you do, please leave at least the limit stuff explanation under my door, thanks.)--Cibele C 01:35, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

Let us look for example at Zeno's Achilles and the tortoise paradox. Suppose that the tortoise starts 100 meter in advance of Achilles, and moves at 0.1 meter per second (a rather fast tortoise!), while Achilles moves at 10 meters per second (almost as fact as Carl Louis). Then after 10 seconds Achilles will reach the tortoise's earlier location, and the tortoise will be 1 meter ahead of him. After 0.1 seconds Achilles will reach this location, but the tortoise will be 0.01 meter ahead of him. After 0.001 seconds Achilles will reach this location, but the tortoise will be 0.0001 meter ahead of him. It seems as if Achilles will never reach the tortoise... However even though there is infinite numbers of "steps" Achilles will have to go through, it will take him a FINITE amount of time to do that: The number of seconds is 10+0.1+0.001+0.00001+0.0000001+... It can be proven that this equals exactly 10 and 10/99 seconds. Hope that this satisfies you. In fact I'll add this explanation in the article about these paradoxes.Dan Gluck 17:58, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

And I forgot something... being a former phylosophy student, I have sadly noticed that phylosophers tend to debate over problems which are either meaningless or that had been solved a long time ago. It seems to me that for this reason, if anyone still debates over Zeno's paradoxes, it would be phylosophers.Dan Gluck 18:14, 4 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree with your last paragraph. That's why I prefer not to call "philosophy" what I referred to as a "formless effort on natural investigation", and that's why I try to avoid overdebating. And in physics, as well, it's hard to separate empty brainstorms and meaningless formal structures from meaningful interests - Einstein himself worked hard on this selection, to assure he wouldn't spend his life feeding a subject whose relevance was declared by someone else and which he would never come to conquer epistemologically (this would be a slave work, and that's largely seen in science).

Zeno's paradoxes are certainly something to be rescued from this label.

I'm really grateful for your explanation and it's getting closer to my point, but it still left me one question: if it's possible to prove that, in a limited amount of time, one can reach the other side of an infinite spacial distance, then it only moves the paradox to the space-only area. It's still impossible to explain how the infinite distance is reduced to a spacial "magic jump", but what we know is only that this movement can happen, that it can exist, because, given a limited amount of time, one can "have done it" - never, in fact, "do it". Nothing in what we've been talking about reveals the possibility of DOING it, just of finally having it done. I mean: as time passes, we can realize movements are real because we can have infinite distances being crossed every second, although they (the movements) are still as absurd and impossible as they looked in the paradoxes. We can count on time limitation to declare impossible moviments actually possible. But we don't know what happens "inside" this time, this does not explain how the system got rid of the infinite "halves of the way" before jumping to the end of the way. Do I still miss something that obviously solves this? --Cibele C 07:39, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

The distance is not infinite, it is finite as well. This is because the distance Achilles has moved, in meters, is 100+1+0.01+0.0001+0.000001+... = 100 and 100/99 meters = 101 and 1/99 meters.

What in fact happens is that Achilles all the time moves in a constant velocity, he doesn't really "jump" 100 meters ahead, then 1 meteter ahead, then 0.01 meters ahead etc. This is just the way by which we, artificially, devide the total 101 and 1/99 meters he is running in 10 and 10/99 seconds. His movement is continuous, not in "jumps". The fact that we can artificially devide the distance in such a way may be interesting, but that's all that there is to Zeno's paradoxes.

In any case, since the mathematical description of the phenomena here is known, and the experimental evidence (that this in fact happens) is also known, this is not a physical problem. Physical problems are when either a mathematical framework predicts an experimental phenomenon which has not been witnessed yet, because we don't yet have the means to test whether such a phenomenon occurs, or when there is a known phenomenon which has no mathematical description that makes connection with known physics (sometimes one would even want an elegant mathematical description). Zeno's paradoxes satisfy neither of these criteria. Dan Gluck 11:59, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

I'm sorry, it was my mistake to say "infinite distance" instead of "infinite numbers of 'steps' Achilles will have to go through", as you properly expressed before. Of course the distance is finite, it is an A-to-B line. But infinitely divided into half-ways. Let's change every "infinite distance" I mentioned for "infinite number of steps into which the distance can be divided".

And also: I don't care any more whether this is an unsolved problem in physics or not; it is an unsolved epistemological matter in my own creation work (which is not a philosophical one), and I'm interested in the explanations you can give me. If you prefer, we can move this discussion to the talk page of the article about the paradoxes themselves. (And if I still seem to be insisting on a meaningless question and if you got tired of this, I apologize for not having exposed my reasons to be into these paradoxes. I just didn't mean to go further upon subjects that may not concern directly to this page. Any way, I appreciate your patience in replying everytime I asked for more.) --Cibele C 19:01, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Cibele: a frequent problem that non-physicists have in understanding concepts like convergent infinite series and quantum mechanics is that these phenomena do not conform to our commonsense physical intuition. The notion of "common sense" is derived from our very coarse senses. We "know" that small objects only move continuously, for example. They can't "jump" instantaneously or be in two or more places at the same time. But another kind of "common sense" applies to very small objects, things that happen very quickly, or when things move very fast (close to the speed of light). Things act strange in these regimes. Our common sense simply does not apply, no matter how uncomfortable that may make us feel. In fact, if we can accept strangeness, this is just why physics is so exciting! David (talk) 23:19, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

Demystified Accretion Disc Jets Problem

Accretion Disc Jets do not belong on the list of unsolved problems. Reva Kay Williams has explained the immense power of accretion disc jets in terms of Roger Penrose's mechanism of gravitomagnetism for extracting energy and momentum from rotating Kerr black holes. Various applications of magnetohydrodynamics can provide explanations for the collimer flow of polar jets. Penrose's hypothesis had been proposed in 1969; Williams' rigorous proof for that hypothesis and its applications to Kerr black holes was published in 1995; and recognized during 2004. Accretion disc jets can serve as the largest form of validation for gravitomagnetism. See the following references:

• Penrose, R. (1969). Gravitational collapse: The role of general relativity. Nuovo Cimento Rivista, Numero Speciale 1, 252-276.

• Williams, R. K. (1995, May 15). Extracting x rays, Ύ rays, and relativistic e^-e⁺ pairs from supermassive Kerr black holes using the Penrose mechanism. Physical Review, 51(10), 5387-5427.

• Williams, R. K. (2004, August 20). Collimated escaping vortical polar e^-e⁺ jets intrinsically produced by rotating black holes and Penrose processes. The Astrophysical Journal, 611, 952-963.

Tcisco 15:30, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Sounds reasonable, except that there is a "Problems recently solved" section where the text could be moved to. I will copy the contents but the actual explanation of the phenomenon may need to be reworded. --Stux 14:53, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Actually there are many explanations for jets, the vast majority of which involve magnetic fields. The Penrose process certain doesn't apply to jets from disks around young stars or white dwarfs. The real problem is finding distinctive predictions that can be tested against observation. The most obvious differences between different theories are at the jet/disk interface, which is currently unobservable in all cases. PaddyLeahy 22:11, 6 May 2007 (UTC)

The Williams' application of frame dragging and the Penrose process applies to Kerr black holes. A distinctive feature of her model is that it generates the asymmetric formation of jets. MHD models have difficulty with the asymmetry about the rotational plane. The level of agreement between observed and predicted values should be sufficient for demystification. Tcisco 06:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

I doubt it, unfortunately. Havn't read these papers in full but from their abstracts they don't attempt a detailed comparison with observations and certainly don't claim a definitive solution. The latest paper refers to "precollimation", alluding to the idea (which seems inescapable) that the detailed properties of jets, including opening angle, speed, and matter content must evolve in quite a complicated way between the jet/disk/ergosphere interface discussed by her and the point where the jets get large enough to be studied observationally. Very large jet asymmetries are necessarily produced by relativistic beaming whenever the jet speed is relativistic (as from black holes). In general, given that jets are produced in just about every environment containing accretion discs, Occam's razor favours a process that involves the disk rather than the central massive object as in Williams' mechanisms. (Of course, Occam's razor is not very reliable...) PaddyLeahy 11:26, 14 May 2007 (UTC)

So then why is the paragraph still in the article? It needs deletion or rewriting, because it sounds right now like we don't know why polar jets are emitted in a classical sense, which is ridiculous. SamuelRiv 06:11, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

See http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7364206.stm 189.70.149.251 (talk) 08:39, 24 April 2008 (UTC)

Major cleanup

I've made a cleanup, united highly related (or even identical) problems, and deleted some ridiculous ones / pseudoscience stuff which almost no physicist consider to be real problem. Dan Gluck 10:04, 24 May 2007 (UTC)

Hipparcos Anomaly: solved?

Hello,

This Hipparcos Anomaly seems to be solved: http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=2496 Yann 21:41, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

Particle physics

Some very big questions in particle physics are still remaining and nobody had given answer yet, such as Why no real particle exists which has charge but not mass. What is actually mean by charge and mass. Why mass is always +ive but charge comes in two flavour. Why some particles decay and some not (may be internal structure of the particle play role). Einstein said ok that mass curve spacetime, but why it does. what is the mechanism behind it. What can be fundamental particle internal structure. These questions may give clue to construct model of fundamental particles and may be new theory is require to answer it, which can solve all questions. I would like to say important thing that we must be open minded to accept new theory. One big hurdle I have seen in science that the issue is not that we are confuse but main problem is that we want to be confuse and not accept new so easily.:-Ashish Varade —Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.200.35.12 (talk • contribs)

(The above questions were moved here - from the talk's "lead section" - by me Dan Gluck 20:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC))

Answers

• "Why no real particle exists which has charge but not mass" - this can be thought of as a part of a bigger questions, why are the masses and charges (more generally, representations under the gauge groups) as they are. Furthermore, why is the gauge group SU(3)XSU(2)XU(1)? This question should indeed enter - known as the "theory of everything" problem. However there is a separate argument as to why no charged massless particle exists:
  • In one sentence - the theory's Landau pole is at zero energy, making the theory undefined.
  • Intuitively, if you put a strong enough electric field, it creates electron-positron pairs which act as a dialectric material and lowers the electric field; this costs a minimal energy - their masses - and therefore some electric field remains. But if they where massless, they would always make the electric field vanish, so there can never be an electric field, and there was no electromagnetism to begin with!
  • More elaborately, it comes from the renormalization of the electric charge, which diverges (already at one-loop) if there is a charged massless particle. This means that the effective coupling is zero at any non-zero momentum, meaning that the particle is no longer charged under anything. Indeed, look at the one-loop effective coupling constant at momentum-squared scale q², for q² >> m²: $\alpha _{eff}(q^{2})={\frac {\alpha }{1-{\alpha \over 3\pi }\log({-q^{2} \over e^{5/3}m^{2}})}}$ (see Peskin and Schroeder, p. 255), where m is the mass of the electron. Thus if you take a charged massless particle instead of the electron, you'll get $\alpha _{eff}(q^{2})=0$ (which is in fact exact at one-loop and probably to all orders at perturbation theory).
• "What is actually meant by charge and mass": This is already known, charge for example is related to the chance of emitting or absorbing a photon - this chance (roughly) is more generally known as the coupling constant. Mass is (up to a normalization constant) the energy of a particle at rest, and has some "deeper" interpretations which I won't mention here. Both can also be seen simply as coefficients in the Lagrangian, which comes from some unknown high-energy theory (this is known as the Wilsonian approach). This high-energy theory is eventually a theory of quantum gravity, at high enough energy, and this already appears as a problem in the article. In fact more correctly it is the same as the theory of everything problem.
• "Why mass is always +ive but charge comes in two flavour": This is again understood, a positive-energy particle is interpreted as incoming and a negative-energy as outgoing. The former has a non-negative mass and the latter a non-positive mass. Furthermore, a negative mass particle will give a Hamiltonian which is not bounded below, making the theory unstable to creation of the negative-mass particles: if you had a negative-mass particles, these will be infinitely created together with their anti-particles. Charge can be either positive or negative, you simply change the sign of the term in the Lagrangian. If you try to do that with the mass term, for a boson you'll get a tachyon (i.e. an instability in the theory) because the mass term is actually mass squared; For a fermion you'll get the same theory because all negative mass modes are automatically filled (this is Dirac sea) and their excitations - holes - have a positive mass again.
• "Why some particles decay and some not": This is perfectly understood. A particle decays if and only if there is an interaction which allows its decay. This can be calculated from the Lagrangian: if there is an interaction involving particles X1, X2... Xn and X1 has a bigger mass than the sum of the masses of X2,... Xn (and n>3, for kinematical reasons) - then X1 will decay. If there is no such interaction, X1 will not decay. Often a massive particle doesn't decay only if it has some conserved charge (not necessarily electric charge, also known as conserved number) and no other particle with a lower mass has the same charge (or particles whose masses sum is lower than the first particle's mass and whose charges sum is equal to the first particle's charge). For example, the electron is the lowest mass particle with electric charge. The electronic neutrino is the lowest mass particle with non-zero lepton number (i.e. lowest mass lepton). Therefore both don't decay. However the muon is a particle with the same conserved charges as the electron but a higher mass, and therefore can decay.
• "...mass curve spacetime, but why it does. What is the mechanism behind it": General relativity gives a perfect description for that. This ultimately follows from general covariance: diffeomorphism (i.e. changing coordinates) is a local symmetry, so there must be a gauge field - the metric - related to it. This couples to the conserved current related to reparametrization, which is the energy-momentum tensor. Thus mass (related to the energy-momentum tensor) curves spacetime (=roughly, creates a particular change in the metric). As for the "why", this is either philosophy - or related to the "theory of everything" problem I have mentioned.
• "What can be fundamental particle internal structure": if you ignore gravity, quantum field theory gives a perfectly good answer. If you add gravity, this is again the quantum gravity problem already discussed.

Dan Gluck 21:31, 15 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added the theory of everything problem. Dan Gluck 18:26, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Bell's theorem and Allais effect

What about Bell's theorem and Allais effect which aren't exactly unsolved problems, but do need to be categorized as something, other than "general physics"? linas 16:36, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Bell's theorem is being challanged pretty regularily, it's true. I would argue that the issue is covered under quantum gravity though. A solution to one should produce a solution to the other, as any violation of Bell's thm should also violate propogation speed limits in GR. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

(The above questions were moved here - from the talk's "lead section" - by me Dan Gluck 20:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC))

Bell's theorem is not a problem, it's a solution to a question about the nature of quantum mechanics. I think that Allais effect is not considered a real phenomena. Dan Gluck 21:14, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

string theory

I believe that many of the superstring theories should be there, seeing as how many of them are unsolved as well.

Those theories are just explanations, not observable problems. Tzarius 05:29, 13 July 2005 (UTC)

I disaggree - a large portion(not quite a majority, but perhaps 10-20% of the ENTIRE field) is currently attempting to elaborate on the theory enough to produce testable results. It doesn't need to have observable consequences yet in order to be a question of physics. Looking for those consequences to have still falls in our pervue. —Preceding unsigned comment added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]])

(The above questions were moved here - from the talk's "lead section" - by me Dan Gluck 20:11, 15 August 2007 (UTC))

I think this is more for theories that make a number of correct prediction but have also one or more incorrect prediction from observations. So theories that could be well accepted if we can solve one or two issues. String theories as a whole is too general to be on this list but if there is a string theory that works well except for one or two parts then perhap it could be added. CaptinJohn 13:47, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

String theory is a want-to-be proposed solution, rather than a problem. One of the related problems, however, should be added - the problem of the theory of everything: why are the constants of nature (in particular all the particles' masses and coupling constants) as they are? Dan Gluck 21:16, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I've added the theory of everything problem. string theory is also related to the quantum gravity problem. Dan Gluck 18:27, 17 August 2007 (UTC)

Move High-energy physics before cosmology?

I suggest moving the high-energy physics subsection before cosmology, because it is more fundamental. However I may be biased on this one. So are there any objections? Dan Gluck 21:20, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

I wouldn't say that one is more fundamental than the other. They are the two underpinnings of our ultimate understanding of nature, and are extremely closely linked. If you'd like to change something, you could merge them into "particle physics and cosmology," but if the two categories are kept separate, I'd suggest that they just be kept in alphabetical order. (And I am a high-energy physicist.) 142.104.60.203 09:24, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Inertial Mass and Gravitational mass equivalnce is not an open problem

General relativity explains why inertial mass = gravitational mass: It's because the metric couples to the energy-momentum tensor, a direct consequence of invariance under coordinate transformation. Dan Gluck 07:42, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, the invariance under coordinate transformation implies the conservation of 4-momentum, not the Equivalence Principle. The Equivalence Principle is one of the two fundamental postulates of general relativity. A whole lot of money is spent on testing it, see e.g. the Eot-Wash experiments, searches for variation in c using absorption lines, etc. One can _postulate_ that it's always the case, and we experimentally know that to about a part in 10**15 or so (depending on exactly what is being measured), but to state it's absolutely inviolably equal is generally accepted as not necessarily well-motivated. 142.104.60.203 07:49, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Invariance under coordinate transformation as a global symmetry (= Lorentz invariance) implies the conservation of 4-momentum, but invariance under coordinate transformation as a local symmetry implies the equivalence principle.

In fact general relativity = "coordinate transformation is a local symmetry". Here comes a short proof of that: in order to make coordinate transformation a local (i.e. gauge) symmetry, we have to add a gauge field, as we do in electromagnetism. In electromagnetism the gauge field $A^{\mu }$ couples to ${\bar {\psi }}\gamma ^{\mu }\psi$, which is the Noether current of the gauge symmetry, and we get in the action the following term ${\bar {\psi }}\gamma ^{\mu }\psi A_{\mu }$. If we have coordinate transformation as the local symmetry, we must have a field which couples to the Noether current of coordinate transformations, which is the energy-momentum tensor $T^{\mu \nu }$. So we add a field which we call "metric" to couple to that, and it must have the form $g_{\mu \nu }$, so that a Lorentz-invariant (in fact even local coordinate transformation invariant) term can be added to the Lagrangian: $g_{\mu \nu }T^{\mu \nu }$. The kinetic term of the metric has to be covariant as well, and the only term which can be constructed is R, the Ricci scalar. We must also multiply the whole Lagrangian by the square root of the determinant of the metric, ${\sqrt {g}}$, because $dx^{1}dx^{2}dx^{3}dx^{4}$ is not coordinate transformation invariant without this piece. So what we get is just the Hilbert-Einstein action! If you deriv Euler-Lagrange equations from it, you'll get Einstein equation, with no cosmological constant (this can be added by simply adding a constant to the Lagrangian). Dan Gluck 14:31, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Of course the action may include instead of Ricci scalar R any scalar (i.e. coordinate transformation invariant) function of the Riemann tensor R_abcd - for example R = g^ad g^bc R_abcd. But for low curvature we expand this function to get Λ + c₁ R + ..., where Λ is a constant (the cosmological constant), c₁ is a constant with mass^-2 dimensions, and higher terms have dimension of higher inverse powers of mass. The mass scale is Planck mass which is very high, so the curvature is normally very low relative to the it - in fact whenever distances much above the Planck scale are involved, the curvature is expected to be very low compared to Planck mass. So the R term is small (hence gravity is weak) but the higher corrections are much weaker, and are totally negligible in usual circumstances. There are two remaining questions: Why is the Planck mass so high relativly to other mass scales in nature, such as the electroweak scale? this is the hierarchy problem. And why is the cosmological constant Λ so low? This is the cosmological constant problem. Dan Gluck 20:07, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

I deleted the mass equivalnce part because it is not a problem, and deviations for general relativity already appear elsewhere (such as under dark matter). If you want the "mass equivalnce" question to be added, please bring a reference for that (see Wikipedia:Reliable sources, Wikipedia:Verifiability).Dan Gluck 14:45, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

Strange quark matter is different than dark matter

To whoever edited the page a while ago to ask if dark matter could be the same as strange quark matter -- that's a good question (in fact I asked the same question myself when I was an undergraduate -- and Howard Georgi gave an answer that I didn't understand at the time, but 12 years later as a faculty member I do!) -- the answer is clearly no, because strange quark matter interacts via the strong interaction with protons and neutrons, whereas dark matter only interacts gravitationally and (maybe) weakly, otherwise it wouldn't end up "dark" (anything strongly interacting would contribute very significantly to fusion in stars). So I removed the question from the article (but all are of course welcome to discuss it here). 142.104.60.203 09:38, 25 August 2007 (UTC)

That's what I think as well.Dan Gluck —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 14:33, August 25, 2007 (UTC).

simpler problems

What about simpler problems like a closed form solution to the three-body problem in gravity and quantum mechanics? Is this considered more of a mathematical problem? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Captainspirou (talk • contribs) 19:36, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Don't know, but since almost nothing can be solved analytically, I guess there's no point in stating all the things with no analytic solution. Dan Gluck 21:43, 26 September 2007 (UTC)

Current analytic 3BP research, as I recall from the literature, seems firmly in the realm of mathematicians at this point. SamuelRiv 13:44, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

biophys and other subfields

There are some critical unsolved problems in biophysics. For one, a biophysical model of synaptic plasticity (they exist, but are still not completely resolved to experiment) and a computational/biophysical model of higher-order brain function. Gene network interaction is another huge one. I'll post these when I get the chance, but what about other subfields like geophys, acoustics, etc? SamuelRiv 06:08, 6 November 2007 (UTC)

I don’t think that either of the problems listed under Bio-Physics are actually biophysics. Gene Expression certainly isn’t and Synaptic Plasticity is more a Biology or Biochemistry problem.

Also both these are very general (the fact we don’t fully understand genetics is not so much an unsolved problem as a whole area of research). In my opinion this page would be better sticking to more specific questions (for instance the solar neutrino problem would have been in but “What is the nature of fundamental particles” would not).

Also (and I’m no biologist) but aren’t there already quite well excepted mechanisms for Synaptic_plasticity as stated in the article?

I think these should be removed but as they have been removed and re-added already I am asking for a consensus here

CaptinJohn 11:40, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, I think this is the fault of a lack of good understanding of what biophysics is. Not all biophysics is concerned with modelling flagella and appendage movement (thank god). The work that is done at Syracuse, RPI, Michigan, Harvard, and especially Brown in the U.S., as well as several schools in Italy, Canada, and Israel that have been prominent in the literature, concerns network and stochastic models of interaction. For instance, one of the main research interests right now is a successful model of cytoskeleton behavior in lamellipodia. I listed the synaptic plasticity and gene expression problems because the former has been unsolved for decades (the most successful theory right now is BCM Theory (article to be written) which includes the Cooper of Cooper pair and BCS fame) and has critical applications in our understanding of the brain and biologically-inspired neural nets, and the second because it's again a hot area of more recent research which has such important applications in our understanding of biology.

My familiarity with the genetic biophysics literature is slim, but I did a bit of investigation of synaptic plasticity in undergrad and went through quite a bit of literature. Brown University has an entire subdepartment (IBNS) in physics dedicated to this research, which I think easily qualifies this problem as notable within the field.

So in summary, I believe that there are misconceptions about biophysics here, and synaptic plasticity is a problem with a research group dedicated to it that includes a nobel laureate, which I believe easily qualifies it for this article.

If there are further objections, please discuss them here, but I would like to ask that the current biophysics problems be kept on the page unless people have biophysics problems to replace them with. Straight deletion of potentially useful information seems premature at this point. SamuelRiv 13:35, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Addendum: the accepted methods of synaptic plasticity are only applicable in the hippocampus, and the physics involved are quite incomplete. Right now we think LTP and LTD have to do with Calcium gating, but the model only works in two of three important models of learning (see Converging evidence for a simplified biophysical model of synaptic plasticity.) SamuelRiv 13:41, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

You will have to bare with me as I don’t really have the background to comment on whether the Synaptic Plasticity bits are physics or not. I am happy to accept that they are (as you seem to understand this better than me) but can I get you explain (in nice stupid terms) what the physics thought to be involved in this is? Also are you aware that there is an Unsolved problems in neuroscience page? Perhaps it could go there (either instead or as well as here).

I’m still not convinced by the genetics problem. It seems very general and (to my non geneticist eye) to belong to biology.

As said, I wont change anything until we get to the bottom of this ;)

John CaptinJohn 14:37, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, now that I'm at the office I have some gene regulatory network papers in front of me. Here is the review paper that covers this field in terms of random boolean neworks (RBNs) [5]. The bibliography section here includes Phys Rev as well as J. Theoretical Biology, so there's a bit of crossover, but I can assure you that physicists are in a league of their own when handling complex stochastic calculations, so development of the theory here is pretty secure in their hands (in fairness, those theoretical biologists are very bright, learn fast and are great computationalists, and often have insights that we don't).

Synaptic plasticity began with Hebb's Rule (see Hebbian theory), which said that the more neurons fire in sequence, the stronger their connection will be. This is also known as LTP (long-term potentiation). A modification to that rule was made to include LTD, long-term depression, which says that neurons that fire out of sequence, will weaken their connections. Another modification provided for normalization of inputs (so you can only excite a neuron so much to avoid killing it). All this kind of combined to be BCM theory (good review here). There are other competing theories that have not been shot down, like kurtosis (article to come), but BCM is the one that was shown to correspond best to data in the hippocampus. Note the hippocampus is the storage area for long-term memory, and is currently the only area of the brain where we have observed synaptic plasticity in action (itself a huge problem, because synaptic plasticity is required for our brains to be Turing complete as machines - that means that we need it in the visual cortex, frontal lobes, etc, not just the limbic system). Additionally, we do not know what causes LTP and LTD. We know it occurs, but why it occurs is another story. For this, biophysical models probe much deeper than our best voltage clamps, hence the journal article linked above. For the same deeper-than-voltage-clamps reason, we need biophysical models of learning in the cerebral cortex. Who knows, it might not be BCM that even determines the result of learning, much less calcium channels determining how learning occurs. Anyway, all this is done mathematically with some differential equation solving, and it's all fairly easy until you hit either a network interaction (ie, tissue as a whole instead of individual cells) or a stopping point, which is what happened in the above paper when Cooper couldn't figure out how to make the calcium model work with changing probabilities of the release of glutamate (a neurotransmitter). SamuelRiv 15:55, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

Gene expression is a major theme in biology, and unless you want to call all biology a part of physics (which is theoretically justified but in practice they're considered two separate, though sometimes overlapping, fields), you can't call that a physical problems, even though many physicists (including myself and part of my group) are working on it. Anyway maybe it's worthe having a "physics of complex systems" part with bio questions and things like granular material. I think this would be better than having a "biophysics" part, which can include all biology - something which I think shouldn't be included here. Dan Gluck 20:07, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

While I have conceded that there are theoretical biologists working on both problems, the thing that makes them physics is the complex mathematics involved and the goal of understanding it as part of a general computational/informational network dynamic (this goes for both problems). Physics of complex systems might be an acceptable title. I chose biophysics based mostly on the categorization of subdepartments in my own university and on the AIP's classification [6]. We definitely do need a section on "soft" and granular condensed matter, as this is hot everywhere, I'm just not familiar with the literature enough to formulate an important enough problem other than large-scale understanding. SamuelRiv 20:49, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Systems biology is the name usually given for stuff like that. Biophysics is usually reserved for problems like how the flagella moves or the mechanical properties of microtubules. Of course in every university the departments are different, In Tel-Aviv university it's partly in the condensed matter physics and partly in the particle physics (simply because a particle physics guy started to work on it...), and in Weizmann institute it's partly in the molecular biology department, partly in the molecular genetics department (where I'm now), and partly under physics of complex systems department. But mostly it's called here systems biology, though there's no such department. Dan Gluck 16:40, 12 November 2007 (UTC)

Wouldn't the Synaptic and Axon problems belong to unsolved problems in neuroscience? I can see that the methods used to investigate them are physics based (large computer models similar to those used for star formation etc) but the actual problem itself is really a biology - neuroscience one. Same for gene expression which is also very general (its about a complex interplay of mechanisms as far as I can tell rather than a simple unknown reason).

CaptinJohn 10:54, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

The unsolved problems in neuroscience page seems to have taken on the theme of general problems in our understanding of the brain, not very specific problems of creating successful mathematical models as this page seems to focus on. I know nothing about the axon problem, so I won't comment on it until I read some papers. Let me just say that I think the disclaimer for this section is a terrible compromise. While I'm willing to accept it because I feel that these problems are solidly within the bounds of physics (there's an entire subdepartment with about 6 physics profs at Brown working on it), I want to say that I don't think User:Dan Gluck has met the burden of evidence to make such a claim as "usually regarded as part of biology" and "mathematics is sometimes involved" and "arguably a part of physics". I have referred to specific problems in mathematical and physical networks in this section which is solidly a part of physics applied to biology, and the type of thing that people with biology PhDs are simply not trained to deal with (A few sharp theorists have trained themselves in the necessary math). There is a reason why this stuff gets published in Phys Rev. SamuelRiv 15:17, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

You'll find more papers on the subject on biology-related journals, and more people working on them in biology departments. So I think YOU are the one who needs to prove that it is "physics". However, since there is no one acceptable compulsory definition of physics, so I am not going to really demand such a proof from you. Dan Gluck 15:23, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I've cited papers and university departments in previous posts. In particular, there is a good review article at [7] and [8], as cited earlier. Also see citations in the BCM theory article and the mathy section of synaptic plasticity. I think this meets the burden of providing evidence (proof is an poor term for this type of argument). I really would like to see justification for using such loaded words as in that disclaimer. SamuelRiv 18:03, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

I have renamed the biophysics section and expanded a bit on the why its here bit below. Hope thats ok.

CaptinJohn (talk) 12:07, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

Sorry, it's not OK. The biophysics section is totally out of place in this article. The use of a particular set of tools to tackle a particular problem doesn't tell anything about which discipline that problem belongs to. That a linguistic uses mathematical algorithms and computer programs to study a _linguistic_ problem doesn't convert her in a computer scientist or statistician. In the same vein, claiming that using 'complex mathematics' makes the issues mentioned in the article a part of physics is ridiculous.

The points raised by user SamuelRiv to defend his view are baseless. These are, as briefed by him in his last comment: 1) There exist some papers and University departments connected to physics dealing with these biophysical problems, therefore they must be classified as physics. No comments. 2) Citations appearing in the Wikipedia article about BCM theory. Apart from the minor detail of being the article's author the same who refers to it, if we actually take a look at those references we see that, out of 8 of them: 1 is in a physics journal, 2 in Nature, 1 in PNAS under the neurobiology section, 1 in Journal of Neuroscience and 3 in Neural Computation. The article about synaptic plasticity is equally revealing. From the first sentence we learn what we are talking about: "In neuroscience, synaptic plasticity is...". Also the references in that article cast no doubts: Trends in Neurosciences (3), Science (1), Journal of Physiology (1), Biological Cybernetics (1) and Biological Bulletin (1).

Looking up 'axon guidance', 'gene expression' or 'inmune system' (do we _really_ have to do it?) in Wikipedia should suffice to convince anybody about where do these issues really belong to. Please remove the whole section from the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.225.1.162 (talk) 16:43, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

Physicists do have questions regarding memory. De Gennes did some work on it later in his career. Others seek to describe memory with ising models. Otherwise this section seems fairly removed from physics and closer to developmental biology, microbiology, genetics, and biostatistics, at least in the way the information here is presented.

There are obvious open biophysical questions. Protein folding? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.233.149.201 (talk) 04:30, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Notes Section

I recomend this section for deletion. With sentences like:

Problems marked with three stars are considered by some physicists to be outside the purview of physics, more properly philosophical in nature.

and no citations, this is indicating someones own personal oponion (whether it is or not is beside the point.)

I'll be back in a few days to check in on this. Gagueci (talk) 22:46, 22 November 2007 (UTC)

Just use the "citation needed" tag. KyuuA4 (talk) 02:23, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

I think the emergent phenomena, multiply universes and theory of everything are the only problems in this category. These either need to remain marked or we need a reference that proves that they defiantly are or defiantly are not physics problems. There is not much point in leaving them in but not commenting on whether they are physics problems.

To clarify: They should either stay marked or we need to decide to remove them or keep them on the same basis as everything else —Preceding unsigned comment added by CaptinJohn (talk • contribs) 09:34, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Actually some problems are really disputed, such as the theory of everything, so I think hte "disputed" mark can be justified. Dan Gluck (talk) 13:01, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, then better provide references showing dispute for each, removing the need for the asterisks. KyuuA4 (talk) 16:56, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

You are right of course, and some day I'll do that. Dan Gluck (talk) 19:12, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

All you guys, Thank You!

Hey guys! You people rock! Absolutely. All of you working on Physics articles. Sorry for going on like this, but you guys contribute so much information so that people like me who left Physics in high school can catch up with the latest. I would have given a collective barnstar to all of you here but I wasn't sure if it's allowed by policy. Thanks again, fellas. Rock on! Amit@Talk 17:43, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

"unanswered questions in physics"

Perhaps that should redirect here, don't you think? --Taraborn (talk) 18:41, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

13900 Google hits for "unsolved problems", 1200+ for "unanswered questions", adding redirect Paradoctor (talk) 09:48, 1 May 2009 (UTC)

Extra dimensions

The sub section "Extra dimensions" asks "what is their size?". Is the size of the now-observable dimensions known? Because if the question as to the size of unknown dimensions is relevant enough to be on this page, then the question as to the size of known dimensions certainly is. Beast of traal T C _ 23:33, 7 February 2008 (UTC)Beast of traal

N body problem?

Just wondering, shouldn't the n-body problem be included here? Its an old one, for sure, but it still hasn't been solved. Is it generally considered analytically "unsolvable" by most physicists? It seems most physicists are content using numerical approximations. According to the article on it, it has not been proved whether or not a closed form solution exists.

Also what about the millennium mathematics problems Yang–Mills existence and mass gap, and Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness? They are both unsolved problems in mathematical physics. Danski14^(talk) 06:52, 28 February 2008 (UTC)

These are problems in pure mathematics, in the sense that acceptable solutions can be completely nonphysical. 76.197.56.242 (talk) 09:26, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

Ball lightning

What about the apparently not fully understood nature of Ball lightnings? Shouldn't it be in the list?--Pokipsy76 (talk) 14:06, 26 April 2008 (UTC)

Unhelpful additions by 59.91.234/235

This IP has been repeatedly adding information that is misguided and out of context. While not "true" vandalism, is there something that can be done to tell this person to shut up a bit? The IP keeps changing, unfortunately (a university computer? IP is owned by Asia Pacific Network Center, but that is a huge range within which I can't get information). Meanwhile, just revert with prejudice. SamuelRiv (talk) 16:38, 3 August 2008 (UTC)

Admins, please do something about this IP! Put up a warning when they log on, or something! SamuelRiv (talk) 20:34, 8 August 2008 (UTC)

quantum computation

I'd like to add the question of whether quantum computation is consistent with the real laws of physics. If not, what is the explanation? [9] 76.197.56.242 (talk) 09:24, 11 August 2008 (UTC)

It is consistent, and the explanation is that it's quantum mechanics. It's just as powerful as a Turing Machine, but solves certain classes of problems faster (possibly - we still don't know whether there is a classical algorithm that's just as fast). SamuelRiv (talk) 02:25, 16 August 2008 (UTC)

What I mean is, quantum mechanics (the kind we are taught in school) is a bunch of equations that do a pretty good job of matching experiment, but have surprising features like exponentially long vectors in quantum states, sort of like Newtonian mechanics doesn't have any problem with faster than light travel. So the question is whether QM really describes nature at that deep level, or whether it's just an approximation that will break down long before making it possible to build a large scale quantum computer. By "real laws of physics" I mean the ones that describe the actual natural universe. 76.197.56.242 (talk) 01:48, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

The paper you were referring says that QM breaks down on these scales, but does not base its result on first principles or experimental evidence. Therefore, while there may be cause for care in QC experiments, there is certainly no reason to doubt the validity of QM at these scales. Keep in mind that QM is reinforced time and time again by quantum electrodynamics and quantum field theory, which have proved to be the most accurate theories in physics in terms of their agreement with experiment. The only place where QM certainly breaks down is with gravity, but otherwise it has withstood all attacks. SamuelRiv (talk) 05:11, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

There is not experimental evidence for the exponentially long quantum states that quantum computing relies on. At those scales, it is unconfirmed one way or the other. As Leonid Levin put it, "[t]he major problem is the requirement that basic quantum equations hold to multi-hundredth if not millionth decimal positions where the significant digits of the relevant quantum amplitudes reside. We have never seen a physical law valid to over a dozen decimals."[10] Whether nature actually works that way is what Oded Goldreich called the "the ultimate Secret of Secrets: `is our universe a polynomial or an exponential place?'"[11]. Are there any serious physicsts anywhere in the world who really believe quantum computation is actually physically possible, as opposed to being an interesting theoretical prospect worth investigating? Aaronson (a leading researcher in QC theory) mentions Gerardus 't Hooft and Stephen Wolfram as both thinking QC is bogus. Aaronson himself seems to take the view that either QC is possible (which has fantastic practical and theoretical consequences) or QC is impossible (in which case QM breaks down, and discovering the breakdown would be a big achievement in physics), so working on QC is a win either way. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.197.56.242 (talk) 09:18, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

In large-scale computing, we cannot be sure if QM holds. We do know that the theory holds to higher precision than any other theory in physics by an enormous margin, and we do not have any true theories that show either how or why QM would break down or how to resolve such a break-down. Therefore, we extrapolate that QM correctly predicts what will occur. Considering the number of physicists (experimentalists in particular) dedicating their lives to QC, I should think they have some faith that it will work. Or I could just ask the guys at my department tomorrow. Either way, there is no observed anomaly and no competing theory, so there is no "unsolved problem". SamuelRiv (talk) 20:04, 17 August 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) Thanks, please do ask the guys at your dept, I'm interested in what they say. I am skeptical that an extrapolation across 100's of orders of magnitude is scientifically valid. Yes, QM is precise by everyday standards, but that just means 10^-10 or so, not 10^-500 or anything like that. Also, Aaronson's concept of a Sure/Shor separator is something consistent with experiments that have been done, but that precludes QC. He gives an example of such a separator (that maybe doesn't seem very physical). Did you look at the Levin article? "We have never seen a physical law valid to over a dozen decimals. Typically, every few new decimal places require major rethinking of most basic concepts. Are quantum amplitudes still complex numbers to such accuracies or do they become quaternions, colored graphs, or sick-humored gremlins?" 75.62.4.102 (talk) 09:24, 20 August 2008 (UTC)

Does cold fusion belong in this article?

The vast majority of scientists do not consider cold fusion to be an unsolved problem. They think that the reports were erroneous, which puts cold fusion in a different category from the other topics on this page. It is true that some researchers continue working on this field, but it is still a fringe field. If this article were about fringe science topics, then it would belong. What do other people think? Olorinish (talk) 14:24, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

It is the nature of unsolved problems that the work upon them is tentative. For example, it seems that quantum mechanics and general relativity are inconsistent and so they cannot both be right. Is string theory the answer or just moonshine - the matter is unsolved and so we cannot say. Cold fusion seems similar. Anyway, we have several sources supporting this entry. Do you have a source indicating that it is now solved? Colonel Warden (talk) 15:17, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The problem with having cold fusion in this article is that mainstream scientists don't believe the data is tentative. They believe the whole field is filled with errors and that it is very unlikely that any fusion is occurring. Listing it with these other true conundrums of science would lead readers to believe that the field has more respect than is the case. Quantum gravity and string theory are studied in the top research institutions on the planet; cold fusion is not. There are lots of references in the introduction of the cold fusion article which support what I am saying, especially the Physics Today and Scientific American references. Olorinish (talk) 16:42, 29 December 2008 (UTC)

The status of the field is covered at the Cold Fusion article where others war over it endlessly, it seems. We're just providing a list of unsolved problems here and should not overload it with tangential issues. We would do better to look at other aspects of the article. For example, there's a *** rating system to indicate the degree of uncertainty of the problem. Unlike the Cold Fusion item, this is quite unsourced and may be OR. And there are many entries which have no sources at all. When we have cleaned up the rest of the article and brought it up to the same level of verified sourcing, we will be in a better position to reconsider the completeness and structure of the list. Right now the article is too poor to do much more than collect material. Colonel Warden (talk) 16:57, 29 December 2008 (UTC)