The most surprising scientific failures

Lord Kelvin

The magazine Science News has published an article entitled Here are the 10 ten times scientific imagination failed, either because it fell short, or because it went too far, with respect to what it was logical to imagine. The study begins by quoting Albert Einstein:

Imagination is more important than knowledge... Imagination embraces the entire world, stimulating progress.

Tom Siegfried, author of the article, adds:

And yet while sometimes spectacularly successful, imagination has also frequently failed in ways that retard the revealing of nature’s secrets. Some minds, it seems, are simply incapable of imagining that there’s more to reality than what they already know.

Then he specifies one by one the 10 cases where, according to him, the imagination of scientists fell short or went too far. This is the list, from most to least important (according to Siegfried):

Solar energy and thermal pollution

A previous post in this blog stated that if 100% of the energy used by man came from solar energy, the Earth would warm up, and although air pollution and the greenhouse effect would decrease, there would still be thermal pollution. Can we give figures? By how much would the Earth's temperature rise in that case?

According to various sources ([1] and [2]), world power consumption by humans is currently about 18.5 Terawatts (18.5 trillion watts). To find the energy consumed during a given period of time, we should just multiply this figure by the given time. For example, the total energy expenditure during a non-leap year, expressed in Terawatt-hours, will be found by multiplying 18.5 by 365 and by 24 (the number of hours in a year), which is equal to about 162,000 Terawatts-hour.

Compatible, incompatible, possible, impossible

I wish to clarify the four concepts of the title, which are sometimes confused when talking about physical theories and their application:

• An event (real or imagined) can be compatible with a theory. In this case, if the event were real, it would not pose any problem for the theory, which admits in principle the possibility of that event taking place.

The recovery of extinct species

Since genetic engineering began, in the last quarter of the 20th century, the idea arose of the possible recovery of extinct species. In 1990, Michael Crichton published his famous novel Jurassic Park, which is based on the practical realization of this idea to reconstruct various species of dinosaurs and set up with them a very special zoo. I talked about this novel in this previous post, and in this one.

Matter and antimatter. Why are we here?

The matter making the solar system, the Earth, all living beings and ourselves, is made up almost entirely of atoms which, in turn, are based on three elementary particles: protons, neutrons and electrons. For each of these particles, as well as for many others, not usually part of atoms, there is an antiparticle. Therefore, there could be antimatter antiatoms, made of antiprotons, antineutrons, and antielectrons (positrons).

An interesting property of matter and antimatter is that they cannot be together. As soon as they come into contact, they completely disintegrate, transforming into energy. Everything suggests that our galaxy (the Milky Way) is made up almost exclusively of matter. There is also some antimatter, in the form of antiparticle clouds, outside the galaxy, close to it and attracted by its gravity, but in such a small quantity, compared to the mass of the galaxy, that for practical purposes it can be ignored. It has also been said that there could be some (but very few) anti-stars.

October the first is too late

Fred Hoyle was one of the great scientists of the 20th century, as well as one of the most controversial, due to the eccentric theories he defended. His most important scientific discovery had to do with the nucleosynthesis of elements in stars, heavier than hydrogen and helium, which are the simplest and lightest in existence. In particular, from his theory on the formation of carbon atoms, Hoyle deduced an early version of the fine-tuning problem, which made him go from atheism to a vaguely theistic position, as can be seen in this paragraph from his article The universe: past and present reflections (Engineering & Science, 1981):

Would you not say to yourself… "Some super-calculating intellect must have designed the properties of the carbon atom, otherwise the chance of my finding such an atom through the blind forces of nature would be utterly minuscule... A common sense interpretation of the facts suggests that a superintellect has monkeyed with physics, as well as with chemistry and biology, and that there are no blind forces worth speaking about in nature. The numbers one calculates from the facts seem to me so overwhelming as to put this conclusion almost beyond question."

Masking against COVID-19, yes or no?

Some governments are using the mandatory or voluntary use of masks for political gain, for there are many people who do not like them, and the rulers think that lifting the obligation can give them votes. Some people deny that masking does prevent contagion, despite the fact that the use of masks to prevent the transmission of a respiratory disease is common sense. Is there any scientific study that clarifies the situation?