The simplest things we can't explain

[Doc_Fearless]

Humans as a whole are pretty smart but it has come to my attention that for everything we as humans have learned, there is much more we have no clue about, even about the simplest things.

This thread is for the posting of the simplest things we have no clue about how, or why it is or works.

First up, Bikes.

Seriously, we have no idea how or why they remain stable when riding them. Many theories have surfaced since the invention of the bike but every one has been proven wrong to date. It's hard to believe something so simple has no logical reason to work, we only know it does.

I'll put up a few more if the thread progresses, but I'm interested to see if anyone else has any simple things we do not understand items to add first.

 

[dDave]

It's not quite simple but I want to say time.

Lots of scientific research has gone into it but nobody can concretely explain why time itself seems to flow differently depending on your position in space, velocity, and light.

We've been aware of time for a long time but we know next to nothing about it.

I think we should dedicate some of the energy of this thread into trying to figure some of these things out. I can't help but think that we are overthinking many of these things and that we'll feel stupid when we finally do discover the truth.

 

[MenInTights]

I worked for a phone company for 10 years and a simple phone still baffles me. I talk into it and my voice travels over copper wires and someone on the other side of the world hears me instantly.

I can understand cell phones. I get how you can code a microwave and then decode it. And I also get fiber for the same reasons. But a simple phone system that goes from my voice to copper wire and then someone's ear is baffling to me.

 

[Hilander]

It would be TV's for me, or radio's. How that signal travels through the air then when it hits your TV you have a movie to watch. With all the signals out there how do they not get mixed up.

 

[Dr4gon]

It would be TV's for me, or radio's. How that signal travels through the air then when it hits your TV you have a movie to watch. With all the signals out there how do they not get mixed up.

That would need a huge post to explain but its all about how light and vibrations can be used to affect electric currents.
But what I dont get is why electric currents in wires produce magnetic fields. Does anyone get how that works or what magnetism really is?

 

[Doc_Fearless]

That would need a huge post to explain but its all about how light and vibrations can be used to affect electric currents.
But what I dont get is why electric currents in wires produce magnetic fields. Does anyone get how that works or what magnetism really is?

I spent the better part of my life as an electrician and have a pretty good working knowledge of it, how it works and it's relativity to magnetism.

Unfortunately it's not an easy answer. But I'll give it a go in simple terms to keep this from becoming a book lol.

Electricity and magnetism are nothing more than moving charged particles with a slight difference. Magnetism is cause by spinning charged particles whereas electricity is caused by moving charged particles and there are charged particles all around us, in everything, including wires.

So lets do magnetism first and again this is the simple version. Picture the Earth as a charged particle, it spins in one direction on an axis right? Well that's exactly what causes magnetism and why magnets push or pull from one another. The invisible force you can feel pushing or pulling between magnets is called the magnetic field.

Now, why does electric currents in wires cause magnetic fields. Electricity is also nothing more than charged particles, except instead of just spinning, they move in 1 direction (DC voltage) or alternate in both directions (AC Voltage). Either way you do it in a straight wire the charged particles tend not to spin much while moving, yet if you wrap a piece of wire around say a nail many times tightly it causes the particles to spin quickly while they move causing a stronger magnetic field. Back to the Earth reference, now your charged particle is exactly like the Earth in that it rotates on it's axis and is moving around the sun for instance. That is electricity and what causes wires to have magnetic fields in a nutshell.

I hope that helps, there really is allot more detail to it and much more that could be explained to help you understand but this could go on for hours lol. I just tried to put it in it's simplest terms.

 

[Dr4gon]

I spent the better part of my life as an electrician and have a pretty good working knowledge of it, how it works and it's relativity to magnetism.

Unfortunately it's not an easy answer. But I'll give it a go in simple terms to keep this from becoming a book lol.

Electricity and magnetism are nothing more than moving charged particles with a slight difference. Magnetism is cause by spinning charged particles whereas electricity is caused by moving charged particles and there are charged particles all around us, in everything, including wires.

So lets do magnetism first and again this is the simple version. Picture the Earth as a charged particle, it spins in one direction on an axis right? Well that's exactly what causes magnetism and why magnets push or pull from one another. The invisible force you can feel pushing or pulling between magnets is called the magnetic field.

Now, why does electric currents in wires cause magnetic fields. Electricity is also nothing more than charged particles, except instead of just spinning, they move in 1 direction (DC voltage) or alternate in both directions (AC Voltage). Either way you do it in a straight wire the charged particles tend not to spin much while moving, yet if you wrap a piece of wire around say a nail many times tightly it causes the particles to spin quickly while they move causing a stronger magnetic field. Back to the Earth reference, now your charged particle is exactly like the Earth in that it rotates on it's axis and is moving around the sun for instance. That is electricity and what causes wires to have magnetic fields in a nutshell.

I hope that helps, there really is allot more detail to it and much more that could be explained to help you understand but this could go on for hours lol. I just tried to put it in it's simplest terms.

Thanks for that information. I studied more and I learned about electric fields and the perpendicular magnetic fields. So that explains why inductors have coils so they make larger magnetic fields - since the current wont be moving in a straight line.
The next topic I will study is why capacitors are used with inductors to generate radio waves. So maybe thats because the capacitor can release a larger current faster to make a stronger signal? I will be learning more about that.
But I do get that the magnetic field has the same frequency that the electric field has so it can generate an electric current with the same frequency in a receiver. I know that hydro-electric plants produce electricity using changing magnetic fields.

 

[The_Chameleon]

While I know about electromagnetism and the gyroscope effect, the one force in the universe that has scientists most baffled is gravity. You see, all other fundamental forces have a force carrier particle, but the carrier particle for gravity (the theoretical "graviton" has never been discovered). Also, compared to the other fundamental forces, gravity is extremely weak, and nobody knows why, and yet, as the weakest fundamental force, it is responsible for some of the most wondrous phenomena known to man, including the mysterious "black box" of the cosmos, the Black Hole.


Black Holes make the greatest human minds choke on their own logic. Nobody to this day has the foggiest idea how they work, and yet they are fundamental building mechanisms of the cosmos, capable of creating or destroying entire galaxies.




- Cham