Truth may be stranger than fiction, but sometimes it’s just about damn near impossible to determine exactly what is the truth since there is either some conflict between observation and theory or observations that allows for multiple but contradictory answers or truths, or sometimes there are no logical answers to be had at all to questions like what was the fate of the Roman Ninth Legion; did griffins exist; what was the purpose of Stonehenge; what was behind the Roswell UFO crash (1947); or behind the ‘miracle of the sun’ at Fatima (1917); why did the mammoths go extinct; why is there something rather than nothing; why is terrestrial biochemistry left-handed; did Viking really discover primitive life on Mars (1976); what was the nature of the Tunguska (1908) object? The list is almost endless. Here are a few more examples from the physical sciences where explanations are proving elusive.
SPEED OF LIGHT: The anomaly here is that in any other scenario, velocities can be added and subtracted, except the velocity that’s known as the speed of light. Within Relativity Theory, if there is anything unintuitive it is the fact that in the entire Universe, it is the speed of light alone that is absolute or fixed, not something like space or time. It’s unintuitive in that all other bits and pieces that are in motion can be added or subtracted. So, if you are in a train that is moving at say 100 km/hour and you throw a ball at 10 km/hour in the direction at which the train is moving, to an observer outside the train, your ball is travelling at 110 km/hour. If you throw the ball towards the rear of the train, an outside observer will measure the ball as moving at 90 km/hour. If on the other hand, you shine a flash-light in the train, an outside observer will see the velocity of the resulting light beam moving at the speed of light – not the speed of light PLUS the velocity of the train, or the speed of light MINUS the velocity of the train, but at the speed of light! That’s nuts, but it’s scientifically nuts and been proven again and again in any experiment you care to devise.
QUANTUM GRAVITY AND THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING: We have the Theory of General Relativity (gravity) and Quantum Physics. Both are bedrocks of modern physics. Both are accurate to a high degree of experimental precision. Both aren't compatible - with each other. Apparently, one (or both) of these theories must be wrong, or at best incomplete. That’s why the unification of the two (a theory of quantum gravity) is physics’ Holy Grail. However, that Holy Grail is proving as difficult to find as the Biblical Grail itself! But for the moment, it’s like the universe has two independent sets of laws – one governing the very large (gravity); one the very small (the quantum). This makes no natural or scientific sense.
We have observations of four physical forces yet no theory which unites the three quantum forces (electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force) with the one classical force – gravity. Theory needs to be satisfied. All of the four fundamental forces should be interconnected; some sort of unification principle must be in operation that relates all four, one to the other. However, these four fundamental forces that govern the Universe show no signs of any obvious unification – well actually the three quantum ones do (known as the GUT – Grand Unified Theory), but that’s where the unification ends. Gravity remains the wallflower. If the Big Bang theory is to be proven correct as stated, scientists must of necessity come up with a viable theory of quantum gravity that is an acceptable unification of the trio of quantum forces with gravity. There is, to date, no viable theory of quantum gravity despite thousands of physicists searching for one over many generations now. Mother Nature is an anomalous bitch!
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! You don’t need a dose of LSD to blow your mind – just study quantum mechanics.
MASS: There are three fundamental properties of particles (like the electron, neutrinos, the numerous quarks, etc.) and their anti-particles (like the positron). They are charge, spin and mass. As the song goes, two out of three ain't bad, but that still leaves one out of three out of joint. In this case, it’s mass. Nobody can predict from first principles what the masses of the fundamental particles should be. That’s fairly disturbing for something as fundamental as mass. Despite the relatively large number of particles (including their equal and opposite anti-particles), there are only a few allowed values for charge and spin, values pretty much confined to the physics infield. But, for some reason, the mass (usually expressed in equivalent energy units – Einstein’s famous equation) of the various particles are not only scattered throughout the physics ballpark but are all over the city map and beyond. They take on values (albeit one value per type of particle) over many orders of magnitude without any apparent pattern or regularity or relationship between them – and nobody has the foggiest idea why, not a validly theoretical idea, or even a ‘far out’ idea. Why should mass differ so greatly from the other fundamental properties part and parcel of those elementary particles? It’s like someone just drew a few dozens of numbers out of a hat containing multi hundreds of thousands of values and assigned them to the few dozens of particles willy-nilly. Something is screwy somewhere because something so fundamental shouldn't be so anomalous.
PHYSICAL CONSTANTS: There are constant reports of physical constants that aren't – constant that is. Physical constants are just that – a constant. They have just one value, everywhere, every-when, and no exceptions. But apparently some ‘constants’ have more than one value depending of where and/or when. Theory and observations (if correct) are yet again not in harmony and that’s totally nuts!
VACUUM ENERGY: This is probably the Mother of All Anomalies! A temperature of absolute zero, that is a state in which there is no available energy, is impossible. That’s because of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle which is one of those rock solid foundations of quantum physics. So there is always a minimum amount of energy available that pervades the Universe. It’s called the ‘vacuum energy’. Theoretically the vacuum energy should exist with such-and-such a value. The vacuum energy indeed exists (is has been observed and it has been experimentally confirmed) with such-and-such a value. However, you have a 120 order-of-magnitude (that’s one followed by 120 zeros) discrepancy between the observed vacuum energy and the theoretical value of the vacuum energy. This discrepancy is the most embarrassing ‘oops’ in all of modern physics and nobody can figure out how to resolve the discrepancy. Oops indeed!
UNIQUENESS: In the real world, the macro world, the classical world, no two things are identical down to the last microscopic detail – you are unique; every bacterium is unique; every house, den, nest, and ant hill is unique; so is every baseball and grain of sand. In the unreal world, the micro world, the quantum world, all fundamental particles of their own kind (i.e. electrons or positrons or up-quarks or photons) are identical down to the last measurable detail. In the micro (quantum) world, all the individuals of any species of fundamental particle are identical to any degree of precision that you care to descend to. Why? Who knows! The other anomaly here is that the macro world and the micro world appear to be fundamentally different with respect to the laws, principles and relationships that govern the two (classical physics vs. quantum physics), yet the macro world is built up from micro foundations which should imply that all baseballs for example could be, in theory, 100% identical.
PARITY: In physics, parity deals with left-right, mirror image, symmetry. Parity is one of a trio of symmetries, the other two being charge (positive and negative) and time (forward and back). At the most basic of levels, physical forces and their operations aren't changed just because you could reverse the flow of time; change all relevant charges to their opposite; or alter left with right. In theory, each of the four fundamental forces, gravity, electromagnetism, the strong nuclear force and the weak nuclear force should reflect and obey the three symmetries of time, charge and parity. Mother Nature is quite the uncooperative bitch. The weak nuclear force is asymmetrical with respect to parity (which potentially accounts for why the discrepancy between the amounts of matter versus antimatter in the cosmos – see above). Why is this parity violation by the weak nuclear force the lone exception to the otherwise ironclad rule? Who knows? It’s just one of those cosmic quirks, or in the context of this essay, an anomaly.
TIME TRAVEL: Time travel to the past is a staple of science fiction, but surprisingly has actual viability in modern general relativity physics. In general relativity physics, time travel to the past is theoretically possible – though damned difficult in practice. However, that means that those time travel paradoxes are possible, even likely.
The anomaly are those lovable paradoxes like going back in time, say ten years, and killing yourself (which is a novel way of committing suicide), which means you couldn't have existed to go back in time in the first place in order to kill yourself, which means you’re not dead so you can go back in time and murder yourself, etc. What kind of physics is that?
The second anomaly however is that no time travellers have been observed from our future. You would think various significant historical events would be swarming with historians and tourists from the future where time travel is possible. Nobody from our present or past has time travelled back in time and left a proof-positive calling card that we've ever found in the fossil record or recorded in the history books.
If something is possible, especially something as interesting as time travel, we would expect to see either people from our future in the here and now, or evidence that we've travelled to the past, like finding a human skeleton buried inside a T-Rex skeleton, as in inside the area where the T-Rex’s abdominal cavity would be! We don’t.