10 simple questions to which science has no answer

Sometimes it may seem that science was getting close enough to completely solve all mysteries. We have theories about wormhole, dark matter, early Universe and a map that reflects in detail how from the unicellular organism life evolved into man. We decided some mysteries so complex that my head is spinning only one they mention. Sometimes it seems that science has the answer to almost any question, you can only imagine.

But this is misleading. A very deep delusion. Science has no answers to all the questions. Moreover, there are a number of well, very simple questions, while not having very clear answers. Some sound so simple and obvious that asking them to think – and not stupid? It is about these issues today and we'll talk.

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Why the letters of the alphabet are arranged in this order?

Despite the fact that the alphabet children are taught since kindergarten, we still have not answered the question of why the order of the letters in it is is what it is. We even nursery rhymes was created to make it easier to teach, but still no one was able to answer why the alphabet this order.

The Only thing we know is that the history of the alphabet started long ago in Ancient Egypt, more than a thousand years before the appearance of writing. It was there he appeared and then spread and evolved. According to most popular opinion, the creation of the first alphabet of planet Earth we owe Hananeel, the people who lived in the territory between Ancient Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt and contemporary Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.

Later, their language was adapted to the Phoenician alphabet, which in turn was adapted into Greek and then into Latin. Since then, every time a new language, in General, the order of the letters in it one way or another, but remained in the same sequence. In some languages added or removed letters, nevertheless, the order remained generally the same.

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Why lightning strikes?

What is your physics teacher 8th grade pretends he knows the answer to this question, does not mean that he actually knows. But if he doesn't, then what can we say about those who spend their study only all his life? People are studying lightning for centuries. Different launch weather balloons into the sky. But lightning remains a complete mystery. At the moment we can confidently say only one thing – they're not even supposed to be.

No, we certainly understand many of the processes involved in their creation. We know that warm air rises and forms clouds. We know that when these clouds get bigger, they can turn into storm clouds. We also know that these clouds can accumulate positive and negative charges, and then create an electrical discharge with a voltage of up to a billion volts, which breaks down to the earth, produce heat levels four times higher than the surface temperature of the Sun.

Did You notice in this thread and one small, but important loss of detail? How the hell do these little clouds create charge, which turns into a beam of death falling from the heavens the flames of hell?

If we proceed from what we know about electricity, it should not even be possible. The capacity of the electric fields inside thunderstorms is about ten times lower than necessary to generate lightning, so it is not clear where they actually come from.

There are, of course, theory. A lot of theories. According to some, electric discharges are created by colliding ice particles inside these clouds with different charges. Others believe that the case involved the sun's rays. And some still believe that lightning creates Zeus the Thunderer in the next family scandal Hero. And in the interests of science, we should not exclude any of these theories until we know for sure for sure.

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Why do we sleep?

Now you probably say to yourself: what kind of crazy question? Almost all animals on the planet requires sleep. Anyone who ever stayed awake all night, knows how consciousness becomes unclear due to lack of sleep. We become irritable and sharp, and prolonged shortage may even begin to hallucinate. Moreover, according to the results of laboratory experiments on rodents – if you're willing to trust the people firing live rats to see what will happen to them – from lack of sleep we may even die.

But it's not as easy as it may seem. The main issue here is that we do not understand why this is so.

"to Talk about this, of course, is not very pleasant, but we do not know, why do we need sleep", — said naroceni Michael Halassa.

Scientists know that sleep does something to our brain and whatever it is, it has a positive effect on our health. However, the science remains unknown, what is this "something". Sleep allows you to restore the brain energy? Maybe he cleans it from the accumulated per day of harmful substances? And maybe, restores weakened nervous circuit?

To date, the most convincing answers to these questions always begin with the word "probably". Sounds very strange: so many living organisms need sleep, and we even know what might happen, if there will be an acute shortage, but no one with absolute certainty can't explain exactly how sleep helps us all out.

How many muscles in the human body?

The Body of a healthy adult contains 206 bones (excluding repetitions) and 78 of the bodies (you can add on another, according to a recent discovery of Irish surgeons) and a whole pile of different muscles, which, as you might guess, scientists also need to somehow count. Believe it or not, but no man in the world who will be able to clearly answer the question about how many muscles has the human body. Usually on average take a value of 700, however, the actual number of muscles in the body is something between 640 and 850.

The Main problem in their calculation is that in our body there are some muscle so complex structure that it really is impossible to say with certainty whether one muscle or scientists see before you several. Different medical experts have different answers to this question. But even if they came to General agreement that the problem is still not solved. The fact that scientists continue to find people whose set of muscles does not fit in any one frame. There are some extra muscle, in others there are rather strange and unexpected variations. How can we count?

Therefore, the only true at the moment, the answer is: a lot. If to speak in more scientific way: "about 700, including about 400, which no one cares, except for specialists".

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Why it works placebo?

As long as people believe that to take effective medicine – it works. This is one of the amazing facts about how the human brain operates. A positive placebo effect (or the dummy medication) for our health it is noted so often that it is time to test the real effectiveness of all new drugs in the background. But the interesting thing is that we still unknown what the cause means a placebo, often representing a conventional lactose work.

Scientists believe that it has something to do with how our minds work. Interesting statistic: doctors say that red placebo pills work better than white. Large pills work better than small. Another fun statistical fact suggests that the effectiveness of tablets "increases," when they give the doctors and not assistants (nurses). Also, there are cases when the placebo effect had extremely bright. For example, in some of them the effect of the dummy was so strong that it can be compared with the use of morphine.

But that's not the weird part. For example, according to one study, it was discovered that a placebo can work even in the case when people who use it know that taking it placebo. The doctors told the patients that they drink sugar pills that do absolutely nothing, but nevertheless the pills "had an astronomical impact on the treatment of" these people.

But we still don't understand why placebos are so effective and how it works. Somehow using a placebo we can actually trick your brain and force it to "turn off pain".

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Why can't we walk straight with closed eyes?

Try this. Go to the nearest Park, tie the eye opaque-blindfold and try to walk in a straight line. When you remove the bandage, in addition to the missing money from his back pocket, you will find something really interesting. No matter how carefully you try to walk in a straight line and you have a degree in orienteering, you will see that the little swerved, and if you keep going, then eventually all will begin to walk in circles. Why? No one still can not give a precise answer to this question.

Scientists have performed many experiments to study this effect as in enclosed spaces and in open areas. Some even used GPS trackers. The results showed that the darker the environment, the more people will begin to walk in circles. However, the real reasons for the researchers to install and failed.

Of course, there are several theories on this. For example, from a medical point of view, this may be due to the fact that our bodies are asymmetrical, and the lower extremities can be a different length (this is really common, and often). As a result, if we do not see....