Placebo effect
A saline solution will relieve pain no worse than morphine if it is administered to the patient after prolonged use of this drug, without informing him of the change. But if you add naloxone to the saline solution, which blocks the effect of morphine, the anesthetic effect disappears. Why this happens, science does not know. There are many other examples of changes in the physiological and psychological state of a person after taking a harmless drug, prescribed under the guise of an effective drug.
Horizon problem
It is believed that our universe is 14 billion years old, and between the extreme points that can be seen - 28 billion years. The background radiation temperature was found to be the same everywhere. To create it, it would take 10-33 seconds for the universe to expand to its present size! But could this be? Uniform "heating" remains an anomaly for science.
Ultra-strong cosmic radiation
Cosmic rays are protons (or heavy atomic nuclei) moving at almost the speed of light, and one of their sources is the appearance of a supernova. The maximum possible energy of cosmic rays is 5? 1019 electron volts (Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin limit), if they originated not in our galaxy. Ten years ago, for the first time, particles with higher energy were detected, which did not originate in our galaxy. Either the measurements are wrong, or Einstein's special theory of relativity, but there is ultra-strong cosmic radiation, but there is no explanation for it.
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Belfast Homeopathy Results
Pharmacologist Madeleine Ennis decided to prove the absolute inconsistency of homeopathy, and instead received a stunning result: no matter how much the solution with a certain drug was diluted, it continues to have medicinal properties. Even if it contradicts common sense, there was not a single drug molecule left in the water. Is that an invisible trace from him.
Dark matter
What is gravity, physics textbooks tell in detail. But they are silent that if scientific theories are correct, the universe should fall apart. Because there is not enough mass in rotating galaxies for gravitational attraction, which creates centripetal forces. Where is the mistake? Perhaps there is "dark matter", which should make up 90% of the mass of the Universe, but it was never discovered.
Martian methane
If the soil on Mars gives off methane, then there must be life. But CH4 is there, but life is not. This was discovered by instruments sent there from Earth: not a single organic molecule was found. Scientists are left with another way to discover life: find "chiral" molecules (they are mirror images of each other) and establish their relationship. If there are more right-handed (left-handed) molecules than their left-handed (right-handed) molecules, then there is still life on the red planet. Or was.
Tetraneutrons
Four years ago, during an experiment, they discovered tetraneutrons: four neutrons that are linked into a system. This contradicts the Pauli exclusion principle: already two protons or neutrons in one system cannot be characterized by similar quantum properties, and four - even more so. Moreover, nuclear forces cannot contain even two single neutrons. Neutron stars confirm the existence of tetraneutrons, but the entire universe does not. Because it would collapse without having time to expand if such particles existed for a long time.
Pioneer anomaly
The two spacecraft Pioneer-10 and Pioneer-11, launched back in the 70s, were supposed to fly out of the solar system and be safely forgotten. But acceleration of an unknown nature, less than a nanometer per second squared, deflected Pioneer 10 400,000 kilometers off course. The same thing happened with Pioneer-11. Known causes (software errors, solar wind, fuel leakage) have already been ruled out. Scientists continue to speculate about what caused the observed acceleration.
Dark energy
In 1998 it became known that the Universe was expanding at an increasing rate. And according to the postulates of modern physics, the speed should decrease. One of the possible explanations is dark energy (a hypothetical form of energy that has negative pressure and uniformly fills the entire space of the Universe), about which nothing is really known.
Kuiper cliff
Behind Pluto there is an asteroid belt, which is suddenly replaced by absolutely empty space. One of the guesses is the existence of a tenth planet that cleared the site. But it was never found, because it is problematic to study that region of the solar system from Earth. By 2015, the New Horizons probe sent to this mysterious place may help explain this phenomenon.
Signal from space
In 1977, the American astronomer Eman recorded an unusual signal from the constellation Sagittarius lasting 37 seconds. The radiation pulse had a narrow radio frequency range, about 1420 megahertz. All transmissions of this frequency are prohibited by international agreement. Natural sources of radiation have a much broader spectrum of frequencies. The mysterious source of the signal remains unknown.
Irregular constants
Light from quasars on its way billions of years long passes through interstellar clouds of metals (iron, nickel, chromium). In 1997, his research revealed that he had absorbed some of the photons of the quasar's light. But not as expected. The only untested reasonable explanation is that the fine structure constant, or alpha, had a different meaning as the light passed through the clouds. But alpha determines how light interacts with matter, and should not change. Its value depends on the charge of the electron, the speed of light and Planck's constant. What constant has changed?
Cold fusion
Experiments have shown that immersing palladium electrodes in heavy water (in which oxygen is combined with an isotope of hydrogen by deuterium) can generate an enormous amount of energy. Possibly, the deuterium nuclei under the action of the voltage on the electrodes move into the molecular lattice of palladium and allow the substances to fuse with a significant release of energy. But science says that melting at room temperature is impossible!
All attempts to explain these phenomena raise more questions than answers.