Since ancient times, man has been trying to understand the world around him and his place in it. Using logical thinking, the inquiring mind of a human being tried to find the essence and relationship of current events and phenomena. The modern knowledge of mankind is the result of almost ten millennia of painstaking analysis of all that the researcher of the world has come across.
What is a paradox?
Over time, knowledge has opened up, providing a more complete understanding of the occurring events or phenomena. However, despite this, there are exceptions when something happens, but does not find a logical explanation. In the modern world, science refers this phenomenon to paradoxes. Translated from Greek, the "paradox" (παράδοξος) is unexpected, strange.
This definition arose a long time ago, at the dawn of the development of our civilization. Modern science suggests that a paradox is a situation or event that is characterized by a clear manifestation in reality and the complete absence of any logical explanation of the results.
The paradoxes that have arisen have always excited and intrigued the human mind with their contradictions and obscurity. Despite the lack of explanation, a person tries to find and solve the problem that arose before him. Over time, some paradoxes have lost the status of inexplicable and moved into a clear logical field of understanding. Next, we will touch on some of the “dark” corners of knowledge that are still incomprehensible today. We hope that over time it will become clear to us what lies behind this and what are the nature and properties of the occurring phenomenon.
The paradoxes of physics
Physics is a science that is rich in paradoxes. They are found in various fields of science: thermodynamics, hydrodynamics, quantum mechanics. We give examples of some of them in a readable style for the reader.
- The paradox of Archimedes: a huge vessel can sail in several liters of water.
- Tea leaf paradox: after mixing tea, all the tea leaves gather in the center of the cup, which contradicts the action of centrifugal force. Under its action, they must move to the walls. But this does not happen
- Mlemba's paradox: hot water under certain conditions can freeze faster than cold water.
- D'Alembert paradox: a spherical body does not receive resistance when moving in an ideal fluid.
- The paradox of Einstein - Podolsky - Rosen: events that are far from each other have mutual influence.
- Schrödinger cat: a quantum paradox. The cat is in two states (neither alive nor dead) until we look at it.
- The disappearance of information in a black hole: information is destroyed when it enters a black hole.
- Paradox of origin: when traveling through time, the question arises of what, initially, are objects or information.
There are other, very mysterious paradoxes of physics.
Where else can paradoxes be observed?
A large amount of "dark" knowledge exists in various areas of our lives. It can be found in logic, mathematics and statistics, geometry, chemistry. In addition, there are philosophical, economic, legal, psychophysical paradoxes.
With the emergence of an understanding of the possibility of moving in time in any direction (modern science theoretically confirms this possibility), strange conclusions associated with such travels poured in an avalanche. For example, the well-known paradox of grandfather. It says that if you return to the past and kill your grandfather, then do not be born. Accordingly, you cannot kill your grandfather.
Quantum Physics - The Realm of Paradoxes
With the advent of a new direction in physics, the number of paradoxes has increased significantly. According to scientists, you can either believe in it or not understand it. Quantum physics does not support the laws that are known to us and consists of continuous paradoxes that contradict our common sense. For example, one particle can act on another regardless of distance (quantum entanglement). The Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen paradox includes not only the phenomenon of the interdependence of the state of particles, but also the impossibility of simultaneously measuring the position and state of an elementary particle.
In a word, quantum physics is considered the queen of the kingdom of the incomprehensible.
“Logic without logic”
Where else are strange events and phenomena taking place? Let's plunge into mathematics and its theory of probability. Very famous is the Monty Hall paradox. It was first voiced in 1990.
It got its name in honor of the TV presenter of one game show, where players were given the choice of the door behind which the prize is hidden.
In simple words, the situation is as follows: when a player changes his choice after the leader’s proposal, the course of further events changes. Although, according to probability theory, the result should have equal chances. For a more complete understanding, look at the diagram that displays the results of a player’s choice and their relationship.
As a rule, a paradox is an unexpected result that cannot be explained in a logical way. The Hall paradox is far from the only example with the logical contradictions found in the field of probability theory. Found more than a dozen inexplicable and strange phenomena. For example, two independent events will turn out to be conditionally dependent if one of them fails. This phenomenon is called the Burkson paradox.
In a word, a paradox is a discrepancy between the obtained and expected result.
The possible nature of strange events: the theory of paradoxes
The scientific world today continues to deal with the nature and essence of the occurrence of such phenomena. There are several assumptions that make it possible for dark knowledge to exist in various areas of information.
- According to a simpler and more accessible version, they arise due to an incomplete knowledge of the mechanisms or algorithms of nature, or the logical foundation of thinking.
- According to another version, this method of constructing the analysis used is not correct, but at the moment it is quite acceptable. In simple terms, we use logical thinking incorrectly, but today this style is quite applicable to humanity. As the course of development of civilization shows, this is exactly what happened in the past, but such changes proceed unnoticed and rather slowly.
- There is another hypothesis explaining the cause of the paradoxes. It says that if we are faced with paradoxes, then this indicates the predetermination of the future.
The explanation is this: if a certain phenomenon is predetermined in the future, then a person cannot change or influence it, regardless of their knowledge and ideas. Because of this, in some cases events arise, the result of which contradicts logical understanding.
Conclusion
We cannot clearly say what is the real reason for the occurrence of such strange events or phenomena. However, we can say for sure that the paradox is the “engine” of cognition. Faced with unexpected results, many scientists and researchers embark on a long and difficult journey in search of the truth of this world and its place in it.