From: sichase@csa3.lbl.gov (SCOTT I CHASE)
Newsgroups: sci.physics
Subject: Open Questions - Was the FUQ List
Date: 4 Oct 1992 14:43 PST
Organization: Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory - Berkeley, CA, USA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: 128.3.254.198
Keywords: Ignorance, unanswered questions, FUQ
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

I have compiled John Baez's original list of Frequently Unanswered Questions
along with the subsequent posts on the subject, and editted it into an article 
which I hope will evolve into a FAQ entry.

I don't know about you, but I have always pronounced FAQ as "FAK."  
Consequently, I am uncomfortable with the designation FUQ for this list of 
items.  I have simply titled it "Open Questions."  

All corrections, additions, etc., are welcome.  

Open Questions
--------------

	While for the most part a FAQ covers the answers to frequently
asked questions whose answers are known, in physics there are also plenty
of simple and interesting questions whose answers are not known. Before you
set about answering these questions on your own, it's worth noting that
while nobody knows what the answers are, there has been at least a little,
and sometimes a great deal, of work already done on these subjects. People
have said a lot of very intelligent things about many of these questions. 
So do plenty of research and ask around before you try to cook up a theory
that'll answer one of these and win you the Nobel prize!  You can expect to
really know physics inside and out before you make any progress on these. 

	The following partial list of "open" questions is divided into two
groups, Cosmology and Astrophysics, and Particle and Quantum Physics. 
However, given the implications of particle physics on cosmology, the
division is somewhat artificial, and, consequently, the categorization is 
somewhat arbitrary. 

Cosmology and Astrophysics
--------------------------

1.  What happened at, or before the Big Bang?  Was there really an initial
singularity?  Of course, this question might not make sense, but it might.
Does the history of universe go back in time forever, or only a finite
amount? 

2.  Will the future of the universe go on forever or not?  Will there be a
"big crunch" in the future?  Is the Universe inifinite in spatial extent? 

3.  Why is there an arrow of time; that is, why is the future so much
different from the past?

4.  Is spacetime really four-dimensional?   If so, why - or is that just a
silly question?  Or is spacetime not really a manifold at all if examined
on a short enough distance scale? 

5.  Do black holes really exist?  (It sure seems like it.)  Do they really
radiate energy and evaporate the way Hawking predicts?  If so, what happens
when, after a finite amount of time, they radiate completely away?  What's
left?  Do black holes really violate all conservation laws except
conservation of energy, momentum, angular momentum and electric charge? 

6.  Is the Cosmic Censorship Hypothesis true?  Roughly, for generic
collapsing isolated gravitational systems are the singularities that might
develop guaranteed to be hidden beyond a smooth event horizon?  If Cosmic
Censorship fails, what are these naked singularities like?  That is, what 
weird physical consequences would they have? 

7.  Why are the galaxies distributed in clumps and filaments?  Is most of
the matter in the universe baryonic?  Is this a matter to be resolved by
new physics? 

Particle and Quantum Physics
----------------------------

1.  Why are the laws of physics not symmetrical between left and right,
future and past, and between matter and antimatter?  I.e., what is the
mechanism of CP violation, and what is the origin of parity violation in
Weak interactions?  Are there right-handed Weak currents too weak to have
been detected so far?  If so, what broke the symmetry?  Is CP violation 
explicable entirely within the Standard Model, or is some new force or
mechanism required?

2.  Why are the strengths of the fundamental forces (electromagnetism, weak
and strong forces, and gravity) what they are?  For example, why is the
fine structure constant, which measures the strength of electromagnetism,
about 1/137.036?  Where did this dimensionless constant of nature come from? 
Do the forces really become Grand Unified at suffiently high energy?

3.  Why are there 3 generations of leptons and quarks?  Why are there mass
ratios what they are?  For example, the muon is a particle almost exactly
like the electron except about 207 times heavier.  Why does it exist and
why precisely that much heavier?   Do the quarks or leptons have any 
substructure? 

4.  Is there a consistent and acceptable relativistic quantum field theory
describing interacting (not free) fields in four spacetime dimensions?  For
example, is the Standard Model mathematically consistent?  How about
Quantum Electrodynamics? 

5.  Is QCD a true description of quark dynamics?  Is it possible to
calculate masses of hadrons (such as the proton, neutron, pion, etc.)
correctly from the Standard Model?  Does QCD predict a quark/gluon
deconfinement phase transition at high temperature?  What is the nature of
the transition?  Does this really happen in Nature? 

6.  Why is there more matter than antimatter, at least around here? Is
there really more matter than antimatter throughout the universe? 

7.  What is meant by a "measurement" in quantum mechanics?  Does
"wavefunction collapse" actually happen as a physical process?  If so, how,
and under what conditions?  If not, what happens instead? 

8.  What are the gravitational effects, if any, of the immense (possibly
infinite) vacuum energy density seemingly predicted by quantum field
theory?  Is it really that huge?  If so, why doesn't it act like an
enormous cosmological constant? 

9.  Why doesn't the flux of solar neutrinos agree with predictions?  Is the
disagreement really significant?  If so, is the discrepancy in models of
the sun, theories of nuclear physics, or theories of neutrinos?  Are
neutrinos really massless? 

The Big Question (TM)
---------------------

This last question sits on the fence between the two categories above:

    How to you merge Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity to create a
quantum theory of gravity?  Is Einstein theory of gravity (classical GR)
also correct in the microscopic limit, or are there modifications
possible/required which coincide in the observed limit(s)?  Is gravity
really curvature, or what else -- and why does it then look like curvature? 
An answer to this question will necessarily rely upon, and at the same time
likely be a large part of, the answers to many of the other questions above.

-Scott
--------------------
Scott I. Chase			"The question seems to be of such a character
SICHASE@CSA2.LBL.GOV		that if I should come to life after my death
				and some mathematician were to tell me that it
				had been definitely settled, I think I would
				immediately drop dead again."      - Vandiver
Newsgroups: sci.physics