• Physics 18, 140
Did time start at the big bang? What happens if you fall into a black hole? What explains the mysterious dark matter? Weigh in on the toughest questions facing physicists today.
Ricardo/stock.adobe.com; adapted by APS
Take the Big Mysteries in Physics Survey HERE.
Physics aims to understand nature at its most basic level. This effort often forces scientists to address fundamental questions. When did the Universe begin? What makes up dark matter and dark energy? How does our everyday reality emerge from quantum mechanics? At the Black Holes Inside and Out conference, held last year in Copenhagen, around 100 physicists discussed how black holes could help them tackle many of these big mysteries in cosmology, gravitational theory, and quantum physics.
Astrophysicist Niayesh Afshordi and science communicator Phil Halper saw in the conference a rare opportunity to ask researchers about their opinions on the most hotly debated open questions in physics. Afshordi and Halper said that their goal was “to capture a snapshot of current thinking on such questions, which might be useful to sociologists and historians of science in understanding how scientific opinion changes over time.”
Physics Magazine would like to contribute to these efforts by asking its readers to participate in this ten-question survey. Whether you are a researcher in a related or a distant field or a science enthusiast, the survey offers a chance to confront some of the hardest nuts to crack in physics. Your input might be shared with sociologists and historians of science aiming to understand how scientific opinions change over time.
For more on these ideas, see Afshordi and Helper’s Battle of the Big Bang: The New Tales of Our Cosmic Origins, an exploration of the debate on cosmological origins.
—Michael Schirber and Matteo Rini
Michael Schirber is a Corresponding Editor for Physics Magazine based in Lyon, France, and Matteo Rini is the Editor of Physics Magazine.
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