The Biggest Scientific Mysteries Yet To Be Solved (Part II)

In the first part of this post, I talked about some of the biggest mysteries that science has yet to solve. This is a part II in the series where I talk about some more of these mysteries. If you haven't checked out the first part, I suggest you do that first.

What Was There Before The Big Bang?

The current standard model of Physics explains how our universe came to be. It was with a big bang and over a period of billions of years, planets, stars and galaxies were formed and that's what has been observed countless of times.

What we do not know however is what was there before the big bang. The most obvious questions is, "How can something come from nothing?" and this is one of the trickiest questions you'll ever come across. Unfortunately, it looks like we will never answer that one because we just can't observe a time before that, if time itself only came into existence at the big bang.

What Is The Shape of The Universe?

We know that stars and planets are spherical in shape and so, one would be inclined to think that the universe could be spherical as well. But we don't know for sure. It could be spherical, doughnut shaped, flat, like a horse saddle, or even like a thin film, stacked on top of other universe.

The thing is we just don't know that our universe is a finite or infinite one. Also, we don't know whether there is just the one universe or multiple universes. These factors would probably dicate the shape of the universe as well.

Is Time Travel Possible?

Ever since Einstein's theory of relativity, scientists have been sure that time travel to the future could be possible but not in the manner you may think. The way it can be done is to get into a spacecraft capable of travelling at ridiculously high speeds (significant fraction of the speed of light) and then to come back to Earth after a few years.

You will find that while you've experienced only a couple months' time, on Earth several years have passed. This sounds unintuitive but this is just how it works. But what we don't know is whether or not time travel to the past is possible. The arrow of time seems to be moving only forwards and many think it's impossible. It certainly would create all sorts of paradoxes if it were to happen!

How Does Quantum Entaglement Work?

There is a phenomenon called quantum entanglement that spooked even Einstein and so he called it 'spooky action at a distance'. It is a phenomenon in which two particles remain 'connected' to each other and any action performed on one, instantly affects the other one, even if they are separated by a huge distance. Distance even light would take ages to cover.

But how can that be? We know for a fact that light is the fastest thing in the universe. So, how can the two particles share a connection such that one gets instantly affected by an action performed on the other, completely disregarding the spacial dimension?