Published By: Elisa Ghosh

Greatest unsolved mysteries of the universe that makes physicists wonder

Bing Bang was just the beginning

To know of the universe is to learn how much we still do not know. The universe, vast and mysterious, holds countless enigmas that intrigue scientists. From the nature of dark matter and dark energy to the perplexing behavior of black holes, where gravity becomes infinitely strong, there are still many unanswered questions. Scientists grapple with the origins of the universe, the existence of parallel universes, and the fundamental nature of time.

Here are 4 unsolved mysteries that still make physicists wonder.

What happens inside a black hole, stays in a black hole

When something falls into a black hole, its information seems to vanish. Scientists believe this is because a black hole's gravity is incredibly strong, not even letting light escape. However, a rule in quantum mechanics says that information cannot be completely destroyed. This creates a puzzle known as the "information paradox." Some scientists think the information might stay on the black hole's boundary, while others disagree. It's an ongoing mystery that researchers are trying to solve.

Dark Energy and what is it?

The expansion of the universe poses a puzzling challenge for astrophysicists. Despite the pull of gravity, space-time keeps expanding at an accelerating rate. To explain this, scientists suggest the existence of dark energy, an invisible force that opposes gravity and pushes space apart. Dark energy is believed to be a fundamental property of space itself, called a cosmological constant, creating "negative pressure" driving the expansion. While dark energy is estimated to make up over 70 percent of the universe, detecting it directly remains a mystery. Ongoing research aims to uncover clues about dark energy's hiding places, but its true nature continues to elude us.

The possibility of a multiverse

Scientists have been studying the nature of space-time and have proposed an intriguing idea: it might be "flat" and extend infinitely. This means "the universe" is just a small patch within a much larger "quilted multiverse" that stretches on forever. Now, here's where it gets really fascinating. According to the laws of quantum mechanics, there are only a finite number of ways particles can arrange themselves within each cosmic patch. Picture it like having a limited number of puzzle pieces to create different configurations. But with an infinite number of cosmic patches in the multiverse, these particle arrangements would eventually start repeating. It's like having an infinite collection of puzzles, but you keep encountering the same patterns over and over again. Thus the concept of a parallel universe which can be extended to a multiverse.

Time and its forward moving arrow

The forward movement of time is intricately tied to the concept of entropy, which measures the level of disorder in the universe. Entropy always increases and cannot be reversed, driven by the fact that there are far more disordered arrangements than ordered ones. However, the question of why entropy was so low in the past, particularly during the early stages of the universe when energy was densely concentrated, remains to make scientists wonder.