any questions?

[claymore]

Are there any questions in science for which there are absolutely no answers? I don`t mean questions where there are educated guesses or "we think it might be".....questions where the only answer is "We don`t have a clue"

[jake-the-peg]

Oh yes loads!

Here's National Geographic's Top 25
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/0 6/0630_050630_top25science.html

My top 3 would be:

1/ A proper understanding about how life started.

2/ Understanding how all the fundamental constants came to be just how they are and suited for life.

3/ A Grand unified theory explaining all the fundamental particles and forces and how they work together even at high energies

[oggy777]

Try working pie out?

[MatydaLover]

I believe there are such questions - just as logicians and mathematicians accept that there are some ideas that can not be proved nor disproved.

But the real beauty of that is that you can never know which ideas are in that class.

That ensures that Man will forever keep on looking and thinking. He will never be satisfied and sit back thinking "We know it all".

This sounds like a topic for philisophical discussion - can that motivation really be just a simple consequence of a chemical reaction?

[tiggerblue10]

What came first? The chicken or the egg?

[MatydaLover]

Why is it people ask "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" ... but never "Which came first, the egg or the chicken?"?

Maybe that's the answer.

[wildwood]

How long is a piece of string, huh?

[BillyBB]

Have we solved how light can be a particle and a wave at the same time?

Fundamental Constants have been constant since the 'Big Bang' so any life is actually suited to them not the other way around. Life has had billions of years to get it right, and wrong.

[Bazile]

If the universe is everywhere ( as we understand 'everywhere' ) to be mean - then how can it be expanding .

What was there before time

How come when you are looking in a box for a particular file - it is always at the opposite end to where you start looking

[jake-the-peg]

Ah Billy you miss the point.

If you make a few subtle changes to the fundamental constants you get universes where there is no planet formation, stars cannot shine even matter itself cannot exist.

Life can adapt and look back and wonder how it came to exist on a planet so suited to it (the anthropic principal) but that doesn't work with the universe as far as we know there is only one of them.

Bazille - what was there before time does not make sense as a question bit like asking "what was I doing 200 years ago?"

[heathfield]

There is a huge problem over pie, Tonyted. Quite simply, Trading Standards don't have a definition for it. That's why we end up with a stew with a bit of flaky pastry on top, when the menu clearly states 'pie'.

And there's a book by Michael Hanlon called 'Ten Questions Science Can't Answer'. Been out for a while.