Why Mystery Matters?

Since my passion blog Beyond Science started three months ago, we have explored a variety of interesting topics, such as history, art, universe, etc. For the last post, let’s take a look at why many people, including me, enjoy learning about those unsolved (or even unsolvable) stuff. Why mystery matters?

“We do not need to look back five thousand years or more to find evidence of humanity’s perplexity concerning metallic vehicles roaming the sky.” Credit: grahamhancock.com

First of all, mysteries stimulate our imagination. We live in a world where we try to come up with an explanation for almost everything, so topics that defy our basic reasoning can quickly catch our attention, pique our curiosity, and activate our imagination. For instance, the UFO sightings carved on the walls of ancient Egyptian pyramids seems to suggest something extraordinarily suspicious. How did ancient Egyptians have the means and technology of building giant pyramids? Did they make contact with aliens? Did aliens help them build the pyramids? What if they were actually the descendants of aliens?

Famous theoretical physicist Albert Einstein once remarked, “Logic will get you from A to Z; imagination will get you everywhere.” Indeed, mysteries give us a chance of conjuring up things that are either unrealistic or just plain silly in our everyday lives. Oftentimes, children like to hear imaginative stories and pretend play “in order to exercise their imaginations.” As a kid, I loved to listen to fairy tales and fantasies to let my imagination roam freely. In short, mysteries have the power to liven up our mundane lives.

  1. Thrill

    The Yellow Face by Holmes. Credit: Wikipedia

In my opinion, the second reason that many people love mysteries is the straight-up, uncontrollable thrill you feel when you encounter something strange and unexpected. Mystery novels epitomize this idea of thrilling. Topics such as murder, mayhem, etc., if presented in the right way, can create a dramatic experience of mental unsettlement. As a result, it satisfies our “morbid” curiosity for certain people. For instance, in Holmes story, “The Adventure of The Yellow Face,” a man suspects that his wife is cheating on him, so he follows her as she is going to a house down the road. “In the upstairs window, he sees a grinning, yellow face in the window.” Did you get the chill in the back? I did when I read the sentence above.

The Dancing Plague of 1518. Credit: Sparknotes

Essentially, thrill is a fine line between disgust and fear that many people would like to walk on. Similar to mystery novels, some of the world’s historical enigma can also produce the same effect. For example, the Dancing Plague of 1518 was a widely recorded case in which a whole town of peoples in Strasbourg, France, were fanatically dancing for months. According to the record, it was “not a waltz, a tango, or the dreaded Macarena, but a tortured, convulsed, involuntary dance fever.” The phenomenon started when in July 1518, a woman named Frau Troffea turned onto a narrow street and began dancing. Her creepy moves appeared to be contagious, as about 400 people started to mimic her psychotic dancing. In the end, many of the “infected” people died from exhaustion, heart attacks, or strokes. Yet, we still have no idea why!

3. Insights

In science and engineering, many unsolved mysteries may contain important insights into a specific area of study. Such mysteries require creative minds, as well as critical insights. For instance, one of the most important unsolved problems involving mathematics and computer science is the P versus NP problem. In a nutshell, the question states that “whether or not, for all problems for which an algorithm can verify a given solution quickly, an algorithm can also find that solution quickly.” In other words, we want to find out if a computer can solve a given question as quickly as it can verify a given answer. P versus NP problem is an open question that has “far-reaching consequences to other problems in mathematics, biology, philosophy and cryptography.” As MIT professor Scott Aaronson pointed out, “If P = NP, then the world would be a profoundly different place than we usually assume it to be. There would be no special value in ‘creative leaps’, no fundamental gap between solving a problem and recognizing the solution once it’s found. Everyone who could appreciate a symphony would be Mozart; everyone who could follow a step-by-step argument would be Gauss…”

P versus NP problem. Credit: wired.co.uk

No matter what we will discover in the end, the process of solving scientific mysteries can oftentimes lead to many unexpected results and insights.

 

Beyond Science is a blog dedicated to the mysteries of this world. As our knowledge grows, the mystery we face seem to expand, too. Does this mean that mysteries are just by-products of human knowledge? Do we invent knowledge and mystery at the same time? Either way, human will continuously push the boundary of knowledge. Perhaps, the urge to solve an intriguing mystery is just part of human nature, encoded in our DNA, to make sense of the world.

Works Cited

http://www.sparknotes.com/mindhut/2013/09/18/the-20-coolest-unsolved-mysteries-in-history/slide/2

http://www.ancient-code.com/ancient-egyptian-papyrus-reveals-extraterrestrials-visited-egypt-in-the-past/

http://the-artifice.com/the-mystery-novel/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P_versus_NP_problem

How Smart Were Our Ancestors?

When it comes to topics of history and archaeology, many people assumes that we are generally smarter than our ancestors. Undoubtedly, the technological boom since the Industrial Revolution has transformed human society to an unprecedented level that no one in the past could ever imagine. For instance, we can now drive in the cars that do not need horses, fly in the air that was doomed to be impossible, chat with people on the other side of the world without yearning for the epistle to arrive. Everything that we do now is inconceivable for our ancestors. However, the question remains: Are we truly smarter? In this post, we are going to investigate some of the most mysterious ancient objects that seems to defy what our ancestors were capable of.

  1. The Voynich Manuscript

“cumque in mea Bibliotheca Sphinx quaedam, Scripturae incognitorum characterum inutiliter occupasset locum,

Ex pictura herbarum, quarum plurimus est in Codice numerus, imaginum diversarum, Astrorum, aliarumque rerum, faciem chymicorum arcanorum referentium, conjicio totum esse medicinalem”

In 1639, in a letter to the Jesuit Athanasius Kircher in Rome, Georgius Barschius, a Prague citizen, wrote the above paragraph describing his possession of an enigmatic book that “was written in an unknown script and was profusely illustrated with pictures of plants, stars, and alchemical secrets” (Voynich). Later known as the Voynich Manuscript, this book contains one of the most encrypted messages in the world. Not only did Kircher fail to translate the book for Barschius, current professional cryptographers also have no clue about what is going on the vellum.

A page from Voynich Manuscript, which is undeciphered to this day. Credit: Yale University

According to Wikipedia, Voynich Manuscript has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404-1438) and may be composed during the Renaissance era. Almost all pages in the manuscript are illustrated with drawings, a lot of drawings, which have been categorized in the following six sections:

Herbal Section:

The drawings in this section are mostly herbs. Some of them appear to be realistic depictions, while others do not resemble any known plant on Earth. Credit: voynich.nu

 

Astronomical Section:

This section contains Sun, Moon, stars, and many other zodiac symbols. Credit: voynich.nu

 

Cosmological Section:

Filled with circular drawings. Credit: voynich.nu

 

Biological Section:

This is by far the creepiest section in the book. One can see “some possibly anatomical drawings with small human figures populating systems of transporting liquids.” Credit: Wikipedia Commons

 

Pharmaceutical Section:

Containers with leaves and roots. Credit: voynich.nu

 

Recipes Section:

Over 300 short-paragraphs, each noted with a star in the margin. Credit: voynich.nu

At our first glance, Voynich Manuscript seems to serve a medical reference of some sort. However, the perplexing illustrations, along with the uncrackable language of the text, obscure the purpose for which it was intended. Is it a mad man’s diary, or is it a masterpiece of literature? We may never know.

 

  1. Baghdad Battery

Do you remember back in my first post I talked about the Antikythera mechanism, an ancient computer discovered in Greek? If you thought that was incredible, do you know that ancient people might have also used battery, more than 1000 years before Count Alessandro Volta invented the first electrical battery that we are familiar with today. This ancient battery is called Baghdad Battery. As the name suggests, Baghdad Battery was first discovered in Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, by German archaeologist Wilhelm Konig in 1938. This artifact consists of “a ceramic pot, a tube of one metal, and a rod of another,” as shown in the picture below (Wikipedia).

A painting of Baghdad Battery. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

The jar has been speculated to be about 2000 years old. While supporting experiments have demonstrated that it is possible to generate electrical current by a reconstruction of the jar filled with grape juice, critics point out that Baghdad Battery may be just a container for papyrus scrolls.

A scientific illustration of how Baghdad battery works. Credit: unmeseum. org

Therefore, is this really a battery? It is a strong possibility. If it turns out to be true, Count Volta may not need to be worried, because we will probably not erase his name from electrical potentials in our physics textbooks.

 

  1. Sword of Goujian

Imagine an ancient sword, found in a tomb over 2000 years old, that still has an extremely sharp blade and shows no trace of rust, as if it is defying the passage of time. In 1965, a team of archaeologists discovered one such sword in Hubei, China, along with 2000 other artifacts.

Sword of Goujian at Hubei Provincial Museum. Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Named the Sword of Goujian, this legendary sword is as important to the Chinese people as King Arthur’s Excalibur to the west, because of its connection to Goujian, a famous emperor in Chinese history who “reigned over the Yue State during the Spring and Autumn Period (771-476 BC)”. This was a time of wars, chaos, and revolutions. “The Spring and Autumn Period was renowned for military expeditions; these conflicts led to the perfecting of weapons to the point that they were incredibly resistant and deadly, taking years to forge and lasting for centuries.” The story of Goujian, in particular, marked an epic comeback that was praised by later generations, and his personal weapon was the Sword of Goujian.

The characters carved on the sword are translated to ” [Belonging to] King Goujian of Yue, made for [his] personal use.” Credit: Wikipedia Commons

 

Works Cited

 

Voynich Manuscript:

http://www.voynich.nu/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

 

Baghdad Battery:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_Battery

http://www.unmuseum.org/bbattery.htm

 

Sword of Goujian:

http://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/goujian-ancient-chinese-sword-defied-time-003279

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sword_of_Goujian

The Secret behind Mona Lisa’s Smile

Leonardo da Vinci, Mona Lisa (1503–1517) Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Mona Lisa, one of the greatest portraits in the history of arts, embodies a lady of mysteries. The wife of a Florentine merchant, Lisa del Giocondo was believed to be the women in the painting. Famous for her enigmatic simile, Mona Lisa was created by the legendary Renaissance polymath, Leonardo da Vinci, whose “areas of interest included invention, painting, sculpting, architecture, science, music, mathematics, engineering, literature, anatomy, geology, astronomy, botany, writing, history, and cartography” (Wikipedia). Today, Mona Lisa is considered as one of the most famous paintings in the world. Once a precious painting among the king’s collection, it is now exhibited in Louvre Museum in Paris, France, and is also an object of intense selfies after iPhone was invented. But why does Mona Lisa’s simile attract so much attention? What is the secret behind her mysterious smile?

  1. Sfumato technique?

According to Artnet News, British academics announced that they have discovered the secret behind the smile of Mona Lisa by scrutinizing a recently discovered portrait called La Bella Principessa.

Leonardo da Vinci , La Bella Principessa (c. 1496). Credit: Art Daily

A team of scientists from Sheffield Hallam University claimed that the ethereal “now you see it, now you don’t” effect of the Mona Lisa simile was “intentional on the part of da Vinci,” which they named as “the uncatchable smile” (Sfumato Technique).  The epiphany came when the researchers began to study La Bella Principessa, or Portrait of a Young Fiancee, which portraits the young illegitimate daughter of a Milanese Duke. To their surprise, it was found that La Bella Principessa bears a startling resemblance to the visual effect of Mona Lisa:  from certain angles, the lady appears to be smiling, but from others, the smile seems to have vanished.

La Bella Principessa shows subtle changes when viewed from different angles. Credit: the Telegraph

According to the researchers, “La Bella Principessa‘s mouth appears to change slant depending on both the viewing distance and the level of blur applied to a digital version of the portrait.” Furthermore, “through a series of psychophysics experiments, it was found that a perceived change in the slant of La Bella Principessa‘s mouth influences her expression of contentment.” In the end, it was concluded that when we can see the delicate smile when we view from a distance or look into her eyes; however, if we watch close up or just focus on the mouth, the smile will then disappear. Manifest in both paintings, this effect was achieved through a special technique called sfumato, which means “soft” or “pale” in Italian. In other words, it was possible that da Vinci used “color and shading to create an optical illusion around the mouths.” This gaze-dependent illusory effect is extremely hard to accomplish, but given the Leonardo’s consummate artistic skills, it is not an unreasonable hypothesis.

Yet, some other studies disagree.

  1. Women beneath the painting?

In December 2015, new revelation about the secret behind the Mona Lisa smile shocked the art world. Pascal Cotte, a French scientist who had studied the painting for more than ten years, claimed to have discovered a second portrait of a woman hidden beneath the masterpiece. By relying on multi-spectral scanning technology, which “projects intense lights on to the painting while measuring the reflections,” Cotte was able to pry into the paint layers in minute details (CNN).

A computer reconstruction of the woman beneath Mona Lisa. Credit: BBC

My scientific imagery technique (L.A.M.) takes us into the heart of the paint-layers of the world’s most famous picture and reveals secrets that have remained hidden for 500 years,” Cotte remarked during an interview. “I prefer to see [Mona Lisa as] a fluid evolution from a relatively straightforward portrait of a Florentine women into a philosophical and poetic picture that has a universal dimension.” The subtle smile of Mona Lisa has enchanted the art world for centuries, but does it really belong to an entirely different woman? We may never know the truth.

  1. The golden ratio?

    Golden ratio definition. Credit: mathisfun.com

In mathematics, the golden ratio refers to a special equality, where (a+b)/a=(a/b), as shown in the picture above.

Mona Lisa contains the golden ratio. Credit: pencilscoop.com

Aesthetically speaking, the geometry with golden ratios always seems to be visually appealing to human eyes, and many great artists, including da Vinci, are known to, intentionally or not, take golden ratios to their advantages. According to What Culture, it is found that golden ratio can “produce a sense of beauty and balance, which might explain quite why people are so obsessed with the Mona Lisa, besides all these hidden bits and bobs: the face of the Mona Lisa, fits perfectly into a golden rectangle, as does the entire portrait.“

Therefore, one plausible reason that everyone loves Mona Lisa is: Math!

Dawn of the Planet of the Robots

Over the spring break, as I was indulging myself with delicious food in Chicago, my heart was following an epic competition between robots and mankind in Seoul, Korea. Initially, I was planning to write about the mysterious rolling rocks in Death Valley for this week’s post. However, upon witnessing the live battles between AlphGo and Lee Sedol, I instead decided to explore one of the most intriguing yet contentious realms of modern science and technology: artificial intelligence.

 

What is artificial intelligence?

Credit: iqworkforce.com

Coined by John McCarthy in 1955, artificial intelligence, or AI, is “the intelligence exhibited by machines or software.” In academia, it is “the study and design intelligent agents” that can respond to environmental changes and take action to maximize the chances of success. AI is one of most fast-growing industries in the 21st century; its research include reasoning, knowledge, learning, communication, recognition, etc. In other words, we strive to create a machine that can think on its own.

Over the past few decades, AI has been able to beat top human players in many different chess games. By relying on an incredibly large database that contains almost every single possible scenario, AI can easily outplay human in many of those abstract strategy games. However, despite the rapid advancement of AI, there was one impregnable fortress that AI failed to break through; it was the game of Go.

 

What is Go?

In the game of Go, players try to control as much territory as possible by surrounding opponent’s pieces. Credit: popsci.com

Also known as an “encircling game”, Go is a popular Eastern board game that originated from ancient China back in the 4th century. Similar to Western chess game, Go has very few rules but demands creative mind, as well as strategic thinking. To win Go, a player needs to surround as much territory as possible on the board. It sounds pretty simple, right? Interesting enough, what separates Go from many other chess games is the unfathomable amount of different circumstances and critical moves. This number is absolutely humongous, approaching 10^765, while the universe is only comprised of 10^80 atoms. Therefore, it is impossible for a computer to just memorize every single step in Go. Meanwhile, although not knowing everything about Go, we human are able to use our intuition and intellectual thinking to our advantage. Because of this, over the years many researchers had claimed that computer programs would never reach the level of top human player at Go, until the advent of AlphaGo in 2016

 

What was AlphaGo?

AlphaGo Logo. Credit: gardinerchess.com.au

Lee Sedol is a professional Go player of 9-dan rank (highest possible in Korea) and is one of the strongest Go players in the world. Credit: gocommentary.com

 

As you might hear from the news, last week, in a series of five matches between humanity and artificial intelligence, AlphaGo, a computer program developed by Google DeepMind, succeeded in defeating legendary Korean 9-dan Go player, Lee Sedol, with a decisive score of 4 to 1. The victory of AlphaGo marked a major milestone for the study of artificial intelligence, as no computer program had been able to master the game of Go before. In game, to everyone’s surprise, AlphaGo played many “unprecedented, creative, and even ‘beautiful’ moves.”  Even Lee Sedol noted, during the press conference after Game 1, that AlphaGo had at the beginning made “one unusual move that no human Go player would have made,” which ultimately secured AI’s victory.

Surprisingly, the secret behind AlphaGo’s immense power was neither strong central processor nor comprehensive database. Rather, AlphaGo was programed to stimulate how human brains work. At first, AlphaGo learned to play Go by relying on a database of around 30 million moves that were used expert players from recorded historical games. After reaching a certain level of proficiency, it was trained further by “being set to play large numbers of games against other instances of itself, suing reinforcement learning to improve its play.” In other words, AlphaGo improved by playing against itself! Furthermore, it implemented “a combination of machine learning and tree search techniques.” By resorting to a “value network” and a “policy network” similar to the basic functioning of human brains, AlphaGo was able to reduce the infinite number of different circumstances involved in the game of Go, thereby selecting the best possible plan of actions that even Lee might overlook.

 

Will we reach technological singularity in the near future?

 

Undoubtedly, throughout history technological breakthrough has always been a major driving force behind many societal changes, and the victory of AlphaGo was just another indication of artificial intelligence entering our daily life. While we are enjoying our iPhones, whose processors are said to be even stronger than the entire NASA’s computational power during the mission to moon, let’s step back and think about the limit of AI for a moment. Will machines become so intelligent that they start progressively redesigning themselves, to a point where we can no longer understand what is going on? This hypothetical situation is called technological singularity, and it is a contentious question.

This graph demonstrates the point where machines take over human. Credit: futurebuff.com

One side of the argument states that no computer or machine will ever achieve human intelligence, while others believe that “the definition of intelligence is irrelevant if the net result is the same.” To be honest, I think given the technological explosion in the 21st century, there is no reason for us to be pessimistic about the future of AI. In my opinion, robots and machines are, in essence, extensions of our basic human body’s functioning. For example, cars were invented so that we could “walk” faster. The quest for AI is nothing more than an intellectual exploration of the limit of human brains.

But who knows? Only time can tell.

 

AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo_versus_Lee_Sedol

Google Official Blog: https://googleblog.blogspot.com/2016/03/what-we-learned-in-seoul-with-alphago.html

Technological singularity: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity

Are Aliens Real?

On September 28th, 2015, NASA confirmed the existence of flowing liquid water on Mars. By utilizing the imaging spectrometer on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), researchers succeeded in detecting “signatures of hydrated minerals on slopes where mysterious streaks are seen on the Red Planet” (NASA). According to the images, these darkish streaks seem to change patterns, as if they were ebbing and flowing over time.

An image taken by MRO that shows the flow of the brine water on Mars. Credits: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Furthermore, it was discovered that these sporadic streaks appeared in several different locations, especially when the temperature reached 10 degrees Fahrenheit (-10 degrees Celsius), but quickly vanished at lower temperature. During the press conference, John Grunsfeld, astronaut and associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington, remarked, “Our quest on Mars has been to ‘follow the water,’ in our search for life in the universe, and now we have convincing science that validates what we’ve long suspected.”

Over the past few decades, there has been significant progress in aerospace engineering. Though high-tech instruments, such as space probe and telescope, we are now able to peer into the heart of a star, explore the unmapped boundaries of our solar system, and study some of the most peculiar objects in the universe. However, one tantalizing question remains unanswered. Are Aliens real? Are there extraterrestrial beings out there?

 


 

UFOs:

An UFO sighting. Credit: Telegraph

UFO, or “unidentified flying object,” is probably the first word that come to our mind when we talk about aliens. Stereotyped as mysterious disk-like, metallic object floating in the sky, those flying saucers seem to be extremely ethereal, popping out of nowhere and vanishing in an instant. There are numerous reported incidences of encountering UFOs, yet most cases remain spurious. Some conspiracy theories claim that the U.S government is hiding the truth from us. According to them, U.S collaborates with aliens to develop novel weapons. If you want to learn more about UFO sightings, check out UFO Sightings Daily for additional information.

 

 


 

 

Fermi Paradox:

Fermi Paradox is a conflict between arguments of scale and probability. Named after Italian physicist, Enrico Fermi, it is “the apparent contradiction between high estimates of the probability of the existence of extraterrestrial civilizations, such as in the Drake equation, and the lack of evidence for such civilizations”. In other words, according to mathematical principle, the likelihood of the existence of an advanced civilization is very high, but we still cannot find concrete evidence supporting it.

Drake equation describes the numbers of advanced civilization in the Milky Way. Credit: Noeticscience

 

Kurzgesagt, a great Youtuber,  vividly illustrates the concept of Fermi Paradox in the following videos.

 

 

 

 


 

 

Three popular reasons why we have not encountered any alien yet:

 

  1. It is too far.

Due to the immense distance between Earth and other habitable planets, there is almost zero chance for civilizations to connect each other. Even if aliens happen to zoom in on Earth, they still would not be able to spot us. Think about it this way. If you were 65 million light years away watching the Earth with an extremely powerful telescope, disappointingly, all they find would probably be dinosaurs wandering on a tiny blue planet. In other words, lights that indicate the existence of human beings have not spread far enough yet! During a brilliant TED Talk, Questioning the Universe, Steven Hawking admitted that as far as we know, there is no advanced alien civilization within the radius of several hundred light years. Here is his complete TED Talk.

 

  1. We are still an immature civilization.

When Louisiana Purchase was made between the United States and France in 1803, nobody paid any attention to the flora and fauna that was flourishing on that land. Similarly, when an advanced civilization from another planet pass through the Milky Way, they will probably just ignore us. We are still in the process of reaching Type I civilization, which according to theoretical physicist Michio Kaku, possess the power to manipulate planetary energy. Therefore, a Type III civilization, capable of controlling energy at a galactic scale, may just neglect us completely.

 

  1. Civilizations cannot evolve past a certain degree.

Simply put, reason that we cannot find extraterrestrial life forms is that there are always some type of barriers that prevent the rise of advanced beings. Maybe mass extinction events are inevitable, and either natural or technological catastrophes have wiped out all the aliens already. It is the destiny.

In short, no matter what ideas you believe in, we will probably never stop our journey of searching extraterrestrial life beings. Anyway, does the fleeting presence of salty water on Mars indicate the existence of extraterrestrial beings, or was it a mere coincidence?  Only time can reveal the truth. Let me know what you think in the comments below. Do you think aliens are real?  I look forward to reading your blogs!

 

Works Cited

NASA News: http://www.nasa.gov/press-release/nasa-confirms-evidence-that-liquid-water-flows-on-today-s-mars

UFO Sightings Daily News: http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/

Fermi Paradox: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox

Hybrid Librarian: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOdNf_JsGPA

 

 

The Mysteries of the World

Hello, everyone. Welcome to my Rhetoric and Civic Life Passion Blog, Beyond Science. Last year, I was rambling about the game of golf every week (any golfer here?). For this spring semester, I have decided to switch my topic. Now, what you are about to witness is the most fascinating and strangest things scientists have yet to tackle—the unsolved mysteries of the world.  As you may suspect, I am a science/technology/mathematics geek, so this new topic fits my interest perfectly. (By the way, the title “Beyond Science” is inspired by a YouTube channel that I watch almost every day. Created by Mike Chen, it is a great channel that everyone need to check out). Without further ado, let’s get started!

 

Theme 1: Celestial Beings

My first love was the night sky. When I was a kid, I would always stare at those glistering, distant stars, and would imagine myself as a heroic astronaut, who performs marvelous feats of interstellar travels. As I grew up, my fantasy towards the sky did not fade away. Rather, I found myself infatuated with the universe. Are aliens real? Will we find Martians or other extraterrestrial life forms in the future? Can we travel through worm holes to get to other galaxies? What lies outside the boundary of the observable universe? What happened before the big bang? What is the destiny of the universe? Since ancient time, great writers, philosophers, and scientists have puzzled over the sky above our head. The effort to solve the mysteries surround the firmament is the universal human endeavor. I will further explore this topic in my upcoming posts.

Credit: Wallpaperup.com

Theme 2: Natural Wonders

Famous American oceanographer, Paul Snelgrove, once remarked, “We know more about the surface of the Moon and about Mars than we do about [the deep sea floor], despite the fact that we have yet to extract a gram of food, a breath of oxygen or a drop of water from those bodies.” Indeed, Mother Nature is a kaleidoscope filled with surprising shapes and colors. Even on earth, there are still a lot of interesting phenomena we have not yet been able to explain. Probably the most well-documented (and infamous, I may add) example of natural wonders is the Bermuda Triangle, where numerous aircraft and ships mysteriously disappeared under unusual circumstances.  Some survivors even reported the occurrence of supernatural phenomenon.  Besides Bermuda Triangle, this blog will explore many other interesting wonders  that you have probably never heard of!

Bermuda Triangle is a loosely defined region in the western part of North Atlantic Ocean. Credit: Unmuseum.org

 

 

Theme 3: Ancient Stories

In April 1900, under 148 feet of water near the Greek island of Antikythera, a group of sponge divers accidentally discovered copious artifacts, one of which included a fragment of probably one of the most peculiar objects in the history of archaeology—an ancient computer.  Later known as the Antikythera Mechanism, this computer was designed to predict astronomical positions and time. 82 separate fragments of its remains were found later, some of which contained gears and significant inscriptions. We learned from our history textbooks that the first mechanical computer was invented in 1822 by Charles Babbage, but how could ancient Greek possibly build a computer? It is a question that perplexes scientists for years.

Front fragment of the Antikythera Mechanism. Credit: Wikipedia 

The Antikythera Mechanism epitomizes the stories of discovery of ancient technology that far surpassed what we were capable of. Although many of them are dismissed by scientific communities as mere fictions, or hyperbolic writing of the authors at the time, there are a number of evidence suggesting that ancient civilizations might once possess technologies that we cannot even achieve today. If I were to invent a time traveling machine, my first task would be to check out whether they were real or not.

 

Theme 4: Human Bodies

Surprisingly, there are many unsolved questions about ourselves, some of which may seem obviously easy to answer at our first glance. For instance, why do we laugh? Why do we dream? Why do we yawn? Similarly, there are those that have puzzled scientists over the course of years. For example, how is “mind over body” effect possible? How does déjà vu occur? What is the exact mechanism behind anesthesia? Can human beings possess superpower? Much research has been done on these subjects, yet scientists have failed to provide a clear and definitive answer. No wonder Korean writer Sun Myung Moon once described human body as “the royal palace of mystery.”

 

What comes next?

In the upcoming weeks, I will present some of the most intriguing enigmas from each category mentioned above. It is going to an exciting learning journey for both you and me, so stay tuned! I look forward to reading your Passion Blogs, too!

 

Works Cited

Snelgrove’s quote: http://www.seasky.org/quotes/sea-quotes-ocean-exploration.html

Bermuda Triangle:  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxo8ooAqXiObjuaIy10ud0A

Antikythera Mechanism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antikythera_mechanism#Discovery

Moon’s quote: http://www.tparents.org/Moon-Books/wfs/WFS-2-3.HTM