The Universe is filled with mystery. There are a myriad of things that are, but shouldn’t be, or probably shouldn’t be. Adequate explanations are not only lacking, but even the wildest possible theoretical explanations are rather thin on the ground. There often tends to be a massive divide between observation and theory. These anomalies run the range from the Universe as a whole, down to your local neck of the woods, down in fact to the realms of the microscopic. Here are a few of my favourite anomalies from the top down.
There are thousands of books, articles, documentaries, TV shows and websites that are or have been devoted to anomalies or mysteries or the unknown. From UFOs and ancient astronauts to Bigfoot to Atlantis, to ESP to the Bermuda Triangle to religious miracles, the list is seemingly endless. Some are pretty iffy; some have a good bona-fide pedigree. No two people will come up with identical lists of what to them are their top anomalies. There’s just too many that capture the imagination of the great unwashed. Different strokes for different folks. Here’s my list – at this point in time anyway.
Continued from yesterday’s blog…
CROP CIRCLES: There’s no disputing, no matter how much the pseudoscience skeptic you are, that crop circles do exist. There are numerous pissed-off farmers whose fields have been vandalized; multi-thousands of after-the-fact eyewitness accounts and an equal number of films and photographs, as well as on-site and laboratory analysis of the phenomena. Observation here is at the 100% certainty level. Finding logical and rational theoretical explanations are however way more challenging than a ‘take two aspirin and call me in the morning’ type of remedy or diagnosis. In fact, no matter what theory is advanced, natural, human or alien, there are massive flaws to be had with each.
No natural phenomena can create a myriad of massive geometrically complex perfect constructions using agricultural crops as the medium. The challenge for a human, or even a team of humans, to create the same in total darkness in just a few hours (this is a summertime event – long days; short nights), without mistakes, without leaving their traces (footprints, tire tracks, litter, etc) without ever getting caught, tried and convicted for trespass and vandalism, is beyond the theoretical pale for even the most ardent of skeptics and skeptical explanations, though human hoaxes are the fallback position, albeit without real evidence. As for ET, why they would travel vast distances to, at least in part, dabble in agricultural graffiti, defies our understanding. If crop circles are an attempt by aliens to communicate with humans, well, there’s been a failure to communicate. Theory here is at the near 100% uncertainty level. There’s a long road to hoe yet to reconcile observation and theory.
ALIEN ABDUCTIONS: The anomaly here is that you have hundreds, if not thousands of case histories by individuals whose testimony you wouldn’t think twice about questioning in just about any other context, yet 1) the scenario seems rather absurd at face value, and 2) why are there so few and far between independent witnesses for what should be at face value be a scenario that’s impossible to conceal from the rest of the outside world. But, I’m not in any position to call these abductees either liars or delusional or mentally ill. In fact I’m sure they are not because who in their right mind would invent such a horrifying scenario, one perpetrated upon themselves.
HUMAN UNIQUENESS: The anomaly here is that we humans are not just a different species to all others past and present, but vastly, vastly different. Four vastly different differences in particular strike me as odd.
We alone of all the mammals are bipedal. We alone of all the primates are ‘furless’ – the “Naked Ape” as Desmond Morris described us. We alone of all species that are and have ever been, are top of the pops in IQ; king of the hill by an extraordinary wide margin in intelligence or the ability to figure things out, call it what you will, plus the use of tools and technology way above that of any other species. Lastly, humans have very distinct facial features – it’s usually how we recognize the identity of another human we’ve seen before. With all other animal species, you’re hard pressed to tell one individual from another based on facial features. You see one sheep’s face, you’ve seen them all. You tend to recognize individuals of other species by size, color and colored patterns, some sort of deformity or abnormality, not by their distinctive facial features which don’t really exist.
If it suits all the other mammals to adopt a four-legged gait and be quadrupeds; if it suited our nearly 200 other primate cousins to retain their fur; if all other species can exist, survive, even thrive without screwdrivers, the automobile, plastics, central heating, the dishwasher, the Internet and the atomic bomb then we have an anomaly here. Every animal species is different from every other animal species, obviously, but there are differences and then there are DIFFERENCES! The human species is so far out in left field as to be nearly out of the biodiversity ballpark.
SPONTANEOUS HUMAN COMBUSTION: The anomaly here is that, albeit very rare, the human body can spontaneously burst into flame, killing the victim and turning the body into ash. It’s anomalous in that 1) the human body is composed mainly of water which you don’t tend to associate with fire or spontaneous combustion; 2) the body’s temperature of 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit is hardly scorching heat; 3) this anomaly isn’t noticed in animals; 4) the fire is localized to just the body and immediate surroundings despite the intense heat needed to consume a human body, and obvious sources of external fire, say a burning candle, are usually lacking. The closest theory is that perhaps the victim’s body was saturated with alcohol from excessive drinking, and alcohol of course can burn, but that rarely fitted the lifestyle of the victim and it would take one hell of a drinking binge to saturate bodily tissues with alcohol in high enough concentrations to cause the body to combust. Since animals don’t spontaneously combust, that tends to rule out body fat as a fuel source.
RADIOACTIVITY: The anomaly here is that radioactivity, the decay of unstable atomic nuclei into more stable configurations happens in a precise mathematical way, called the half-life of the unstable nuclei. This is a verified measurement and bona-fide observation. If you start with say 1000 unstable nuclei of substance X, time how long it takes for the first 500 to decay to a stable state. Once you have that, then you know another 250 unstable nuclei will decay in the exact same amount of time, and another 125 ditto, and so on down the line. But theoretically, how do these unintelligent, inanimate nuclei ‘know’ when it’s their turn to decay to uphold this half-life relationship when there are all kinds of alternatives? You can imagine that the decay process could be, should be, random and haphazard, or follow a bell-shaped distribution curb, like say autumn leaves falling off a tree – a few at first, then a lot, then many, then a lot of what’s left, then the rest of the few left. Or, it would be logical to think that if 500 out of 1000 nuclei decay in say one hour, that all (the remaining 500) will go poof in two hours – a linear relationship. Anyway, observation shows it’s the half-life relationship that Mother Nature decided upon, but there’s no theory to back up that relationship vis-à-vis any other IMHO.
The other and probably more serious anomaly is that there is no accepted trigger mechanism. An unstable nucleus just goes poof for no apparent reason. There is no cause to this effect. You cannot trigger unstable nuclei into going poof by hammering on it, subjecting it to extreme heat or cold, pouring acid on it or by any other physical and/or chemical means as your disposal. Take two identical unstable nuclei, side by side. One goes poof and the other doesn’t. Why? Lack of causality is an anomaly in itself and deeply disturbing. Things happen for a reason. Cause and effect should go back in an unbroken chain right back to the Big Bang (something else which apparently happened for no discernible reason at all).
WAVE-PARTICLE DUALITY: Of all things anomalous, quantum physics has to be right up there in the running for the gold medal. On the one hand, it has been verified to incredible levels of precision and when applied in technologies in our modern world, forms the basis for a goodly percentage of the global economy. On the other hand, it makes absolutely no sense, common or otherwise, at all. That’s why the mantra of those employed in applying and dealing with quantum physics, or quantum mechanics as it is often termed, tends to be “shut up and calculate and don’t worry about what it means”.
In our everyday macro world, bullets and billiard balls behave in a predictable fashion. They are macro particles that don’t wave all over the bloody place, otherwise a soldier would never hit his target and a game of billiards would be a farce. You certainly don’t want your car waving on down the highway. But if you lived in the micro (quantum) world, that’s exactly what would happen. Take the infamous double-slit experiment.
If you shine a beam of light, which is but little bullets called photons, or fire any other elementary particle (or micro bullet) for that matter like electrons at a single open slit, the pattern you get at a target behind that slit is just a blob of bullet-like hits. Everything behaves like particles or like bullets. But if you fire those little bullets at a double slit – two slits side by side, the target behind the double slit will show not two separate blobs, but a traditional wave interference pattern spread out over a wide area of alternating high and low concentrations of where the little bullets hit, or didn’t hit. Strange doings that.
Well obviously the little bullets are somehow interfering with themselves while in flight, so the next bit is to shoot them off just one-at-a-time, so that one bullet hits the target behind the slit(s) before the next bullet is fired. That way, bullets in flight can’t get in the way of other bullets. When you do that with a single slit, you eventually get a single blob of bullet hits on the target that’s behind: so far so good. Now fire off your one-at-a-time photon or electron bullets at the double slits. You would expect two blobs, one behind each slit. That’s what you’d expect, but that’s not what you get. What you see is what you get and what you see is still that classic wave interference pattern. So your little photon or electron bullets behave both like bullets or particles, but at the same time behave like waves: wave-particle duality rules the quantum roost. Something is screwy somewhere!
GOD: This isn’t really an anomaly due to any conflict between theory and observation. There is very little of either. The anomaly here is why anyone in their right mind would believe in such a supernatural deity. The gap between observational evidence and theoretical faith is so vast that it staggers the mind – at least it boggles my mind, all the more so since the only real description of God’s bona-fides, the human penned Old Testament, exhibits Him not as a just, loving, forgiving, merciful and compassionate deity but an all-round SOB that makes Hitler look downright cuddly.
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