Unsolved Mysteries of Contemporary Science

We continue our series on anomalies and unsolved mysteries of contemporary science. It is evident that great advances in scientific fields necessarily pass through what is not known rather than what is known. Despite this, the scientific community is generally very inclined to celebrate its victories and very sparing in indicating its perplexities. In this series of articles we have opted to highlight those phenomena or obscure points that are accepted as such by the scientific community itself and on which there is therefore effective research or scientific documentation.

Animal Instinct

Fine-Structure Constant

Stable matter, and therefore life and intelligent beings, could not exist if its value were very different. For example, the requirement that the proton lifetime be longer than the main sequence lifetime of stars results in an upper limit $\alpha_0 = 0.0121/80$ instead of $\alpha = 0.0071/137$.

Near-Death Experiences

Near-death experiences have not been explained through hallucination theories, which are unable to explain why such experiences so often have a similar pattern.

Exact Correspondence of Proton and Electron Charges

The exact correspondence of the proton charge and electron charge (which have an identical absolute value, up to 18 decimal places) is a "coincidence" on which our existence depends, since it is necessary for planets to stay together. Modern physics offers no explanation for this exact correspondence, which seems very surprising given that each proton has a mass 1836 times greater than each electron. $e^2 = 2\pi\alpha\hbar c$ is actually strictly related to charge quantization. If charge quantization is true then it's not a coincidence, if it's false then it is.

Atomic Quantization

Atomic quantization limits electron energy levels to certain discrete values. It is another natural law necessary for our existence, but unexplainable.

Alignment of Quasar Polarization Vectors

The alignment of quasar polarization vectors is a strange mystery.

Language Acquisition by Children

Mainly by listening to their parents, young children somehow acquire language, including complex grammar rules, even though they are never formally taught such rules. This is very difficult to explain. There have been attempts to explain it as the result of a genetically provided "brain module," but it seems impossible that language rules could be stored in DNA, which uses a "raw" nucleotide language suitable only for declaring protein constituents.

Why We Sleep

We are still not sure why we sleep. Despite many decades of research and many theories, science still cannot exactly explain why we sleep. We know, more or less, what happens while we sleep, but the main reason is still unknown. There are many other life forms that never sleep, such as jellyfish, bacteria, plants, and sponges, for example. So why must higher animals sleep to remain mentally healthy, fit, and healthy? It clearly has some evolutionary advantage, but we still need to explain why we do it.

Electromagnetic to Gravitational Force Ratio

N, the ratio of the electromagnetic force to the gravitational force between a pair of protons, is approximately $10^{36}$. According to Rees, if it were significantly smaller, only a small and short-lived universe could exist.

Nuclear Efficiency (Epsilon)

Epsilon ($\varepsilon$), a measure of the nuclear efficiency of fusion from hydrogen to helium, is 0.007: when four nucleons fuse into helium, 0.007 (0.7%) of their mass is converted to energy. The value of $\varepsilon$ is in part determined by the strength of the strong nuclear force. If $\varepsilon$ were 0.006, only hydrogen could exist, and complex chemistry would be impossible. According to Rees, if it were above 0.008, no...