What are the biggest problems in physics today?

Question

So far, Im aware of a few :

1) Pre big bang, what happened, what kicked it off, is it even knowable.

2) What is the reason certain constants are the value they are? For example, why does light go as fast as it does? Yes I know you could say it's based on properties of a vacuum, but if you dig, you come to a constant eventually, and it is these 'unbreakable', or 'prime number like' constants that just happen to be as they are with no known reason.

I know there are questions about gravity, and its details, what are they?

rant on :
The current standing of physics seems to be much like the very early 1900s. Everything seems about ready to wrap up, except for a feeeew teeny weeny little problems. These small problems were ripped open, exposing a new, fascinating, and deeper understanding of the universe.
rant off. :-)

Answer 1

1. That is indeed a major question. Even if theories like intersecting M-branes are developed and supported, it just pushes back the question to where the branes came from.

2. So far, it's just 'Those are the values God chose.' We do know that in most cases, if any of them has a slightly different value, the universe as we know it would be impossible.

Some believe that in the earliest nanoseconds of the big bang, light travelled at a different speed. See Magueijo's book for an excellent and fascinating explanation of this theory.

Wiggins and Wynn list these (see reference):
1. Physics: Why do some particles have mass while others have none?
2. Chemistry: By what series of chemical reactions did atoms form the first living things?
3. Biology: What is the complete structure and function of the proteome?
4. Geology: Is accurate long-range weather forecasting possible?
5. Astronomy: Why is the universe expanding faster and faster?

My own big question is how did the mechanism of DNA come into existence? Encoded into one single molecule is everything to determine your physiology, how that organism is to develop from a single cell, and even details about the DNA mechanism itself. The result is a complete human, which is even capable of reproducing itself. That one molecule is much larger than any other molecule we normally encounter.

Science understands electromagnetism quite thoroughly. It's the best understood fields and forces. But we still have no idea why or how charges attract or repel, or why they have the strength they have, or why there's no magnetic monopole. It's truly humbling.

Answer 2

The single biggest problem is configuring physical theory wherein c=c, G=G, and h=h simultaneously, unifying gravitation (h=0) with quantum field theory (G=0). String theory - with 10^1000 acceptable vacua (the "landscape") and no testable predictions - is a disaster.

Is the Standard Model complete or can supersymmetry be validated? Can the massed lightspeed prohibition in Special Relativity be finessed as was the Absolute Zero prohibition in thermodynamics (population inversions like lasers and MRI have negative temps kelvin)?

Is the Equivalence Principle true? Do all local mass distributions vacuum free fall along identical minimum action trajectories? Any counterexample falsfies General Relativity (postulated), string theory (BRST invarance) and conservation of angular momentum (through Noether's theorem). NOBODY knows if a left shoe falls identically to a right shoe by the rules of engagement. It is easily testable,

http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz4.pdf
The details with the slow and difficult test.
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/lajos.htm#a2
The fast and easy test.

Stuff like that.

Answer 3

how about the attempt to find the existence of the higgs boson? Huge dome was built at border between France and Switzerland, Check out the site by googling "CERN" (capitalized)
Basically they're trying to complete the 12-particle Standard Model by colliding protons at each other and sorting out the particles through electromagnetic fields of sorts. These protons are going at 99.999999% the speed of light, so very very fast.

Your rant is right: physicists have been and are trying to discover things about the very tiny things which will explain the very big things, or the other way around.

"Question about gravity": meaning connection w/ the other forces? "Electroweak" force is the fundamental force that governs electromagnetic + weak force, so they're trying to find a basic force that links the gravitational force + the other 3 forces (strong force, weak force, electrom. force)

Answer 4

A few BIG problems are:

1. understanding wave/particle duality

2. where is the missing mass of the universe? About 90% is unaccounted for.

3. Creating a unified field theory

4. a complete understanding of gravity

There are many many others however.

Answer 5

The fact that the scientific establishment has too much to lose if their pet theories turn out to be wrong, so they prevent the study of heretical new ideas from being funded and published.

Answer 6

big one that i no if is to do with nuclear fission at the moment we have fusion which creates a lot of radio active waste and fission will not to create fission very much waste. the problem is to do with using a machine to slam atoms together to create a new one and contain it for 10 seconds to harness its energy