你身边仍未揭秘的十个小谜团(上)

We know that science doesn't have the answers to everything, but seeing that it's 2015 and the future is almost here, there are some questions we really expected it to have answered by now.

我们知道科学无法解释所有事情，但转眼都2015年啦，随着科学的进步，我们希望有些谜团能够尽快得到解释。以下就是十个我们期待早日弄清楚的谜团。

Does Turbulence Work?

10.气流是如何形成的？

Everyone has gone through a flight where the pilot asks you to tighten your seat belts because of excessive turbulence, but even though it is so important to things like air safety, we just have no idea how it works. It has perplexed scientists to such an extent that Einstein once famously said, “Before I die, I hope someone will clarify quantum physics for me. After I die, I hope God will explain turbulence to me.”

相信每个人都有过在飞机上遇到强气流而被要求系上安全带的经历，知道气流的形成对航空安全十分重要，然而，遗憾的是至今无人知晓当中原理。不少科学家深陷谜团，连著名科学家爱因斯坦（Albert Einstein,1879-1955）也曾说过：希望在有生之年看到量子力学之谜被解开，而去世之后上帝可以向我解释气流的奥秘。

The problem is aggravated by the fact that wherever the need to study turbulence arises—like in jet propulsion—chemical reactions take place alongside the high pressure and extreme conditions, which makes it difficult for researchers to study the exact conditions needed to produce turbulence. If somehow we could figure it out, it could be applied to a variety of uses since turbulence occurs everywhere in nature. Maybe one day we'd even be able to predict hurricanes or other natural disasters with accuracy, thus minimizing the damage and finally scoring one over nature.

当解决问题更迫切，问题便更严峻。在研究喷射推进问题的实验中，化学反应需要在高压及极端条件下进行。如何能制造出这些条件呢？这是研究如何产生出气流的研究者们所要面对的又一大难题。由于气流在大自然中无处不在，如果人类研究出如何制造气流，将对很多领域做出重大贡献。人类亦可准确预测气流与其他自然灾害，抢先于自然将伤害减到最低。

Do Cats Purr?

9.为何猫会发出呼噜声？

We've shown before that cats don't always purr when they're happy, but the mystery goes way deeper than that. There is no purring organ in the throat of a cat, and even though extensive research has been done on the function itself, the exact origin of the function in the anatomy of cats is still 's theorized that they might do it by the constriction and dilation of the larynx, but no evidence has ever been provided to prove or disprove that theory. It was, however, found that the frequency of a cat's purr falls somewhere in the range required to accelerate bone regeneration and healing, so it might just be a healing superpower that we had no idea even existed in the animal kingdom. That might also explain why we take it to be a happy sound, as the frequency is not just beneficial for the cat—it tends to make us happier as well.

事实证明，当猫心情愉悦时并不一定会发出呼噜声，但问题远远不止如此简单。在猫的喉咙里并没有发出呼噜声的器官，即使在发声功能上做了详细的研究调查，确切的发声器官在猫身体的哪个部位仍无从得知。从理论上来说，声音与喉咙结构和扩张有关，但并没有任何理论证据来证实这一说法。但有研究指出，猫发出呼噜声的频率可达到加快骨头再生或治愈所需的范围。因此，这一举动亦可解释为一种不被人所知的治愈魔力。这也解释了为何人们认为猫发出的呼噜声是一种开心的声音：这个频率不但对猫有好处，亦令人类感到心情愉悦。

Causes Hypnic Jerks?

8.为什么会有入睡抽动？

Often when we are about to fall asleep, we experience a kind of a falling sensation which causes us to wake up with a start. It happens to almost everybody, and the sensation is known as a hypnic jerk. It also sometimes happens when you tilt the chair you're sitting on too far—somehow you can sense when you're about to fall, and you wake up with a hypnic jerk. We really have no idea what causes them or whether they serve any modern purpose, but science has come up with some interesting theories.

当我们将要进入睡眠状态时，常遇到一种要下坠的感觉，令我们突然惊醒。几乎每个人都有过这种经历，这就是我们所知道的“入睡抽动”。同样的感觉亦会发生在当你坐得离椅子太远，椅子倾斜而你感觉到快要从椅子上掉下去时，便会因为入睡抽动而突然惊醒。我们仍对造成入睡抽动的原因毫无头绪，亦不知其是否具有特定作用，但科学家提出了一些有趣的理论设想。

One hypothesis suggests that our bodies developed this mechanism when we used to sleep on branches or high ground, and it was meant to help us avoid a fall. But there is no evidence to support it, and humans rarely slept on trees or precarious cliffs as a matter of habit. Other theories suggest that it happens because of the slowing down of the body's processes when you fall asleep, but again, there are no scientific studies to support that claim either.

其中一个设想是当我们睡在树干上或较高的地方时，入睡抽动令我们免于从高处跌落。但并没有证据证明此理论，而人类也没有睡在树上或者悬崖边的习惯。亦有理论猜测当人类进入睡眠状态，身体机能减缓，导致了入睡抽动。同样，此理论猜测也无从考究。

Exactly Do Magnets Work?

7.磁铁的原理是什么？

Magnetism is a widely observed phenomenon in our universe, but a lot of things about it remain unexplained. For example, why do particles charged with electricity create a magnetic field strong enough to physically move things from far away? And when they do, why exactly do they align themselves to two poles, north and south?

磁力在我们生活中并不少见，但许多有关磁力的现象却无法解释。为何当微粒充电时，会产生一个足以使远处物体移动的强大磁场？此时，为何微粒会整齐地排列于南北两极？

Explanations range from “it's just one of those things” to particle movement at the quantum level, and MIT even has a whole laboratory dedicated to research on nothing but magnetism. We know that it's happening, and we have a good idea of what exactly is happening, too—the particles align themselves in a way that adds up their charge in one direction, but it's not very clear as to why the particles emit a magnetic field to start with. The fact that the Earth's magnetic field is not well understood either further restricts our ability to understand magnetism.

对此，众说纷纭。有人说磁力就是这么一回事，也有人说这是因为微粒按照量子能级来排序。为了解开谜团，麻省理工学院甚至设立了一个专门研究磁力的研究所。我们所知道的只是微粒排列的方式会使一方面电荷增强，而为何微粒首先会释放出磁场我们则一概不知。事实上，人类对地球磁场的认识有限，进一步限制了人类对磁力的研究。

Do Giraffes Have Long Necks?

6.为何长颈鹿的脖子那么长？

Many may believe that only giraffes with long necks survived evolution because they had an advantage over the other, short-necked ones, but that's not really true. Longer necks provide no particular advantage to giraffes because they care more about the type of leaf than the height at which it's situated. If it's confusing to you, science doesn't have much of a clue either. There's just no consensus on the exact conditions that would have caused long necks to be selected positively among giraffes.

大多数人相信长颈鹿的长脖子是演变的结果，认为长脖子比短脖子的长颈鹿在生存上更有优势，但事实并非如此。长脖子并不具有明显的优势，长颈鹿在进食时更关注的是树叶的种类而不是树叶所在的高度。若然你对此持怀疑态度，科学亦无法对此做出解释，科学界亦并没有对长脖子是优胜劣汰的结果这一结论达成共识。

One theory is that the giraffes developed long necks as a mating trait—in other words, it helped with the ladies—but there's not much evidence to support that hypothesis. On the contrary, big, heavy necks, no matter how good they look, would be a definite disadvantage in the wild and are sure to die out at some point in the future. Another theory says that they had to develop long necks because of long legs, but again, that theory is based less on factual evidence and more on a scientist looking at a giraffe and guessing.

有理论提出长脖子是长颈鹿的一种交配特征，换句话说，长脖子有助于雌性长颈鹿选择交配对象。但这只是一个没有依据的推论。相反，长脖子又大又笨重，即使外形美观，但只会给野外生存的长颈鹿带来劣势。因此长脖子这一特征终会消失。另外一个理论则指长颈鹿因为长腿的需要而演变出长脖子，这一理论更多是建立于科学家的猜想而非事实依据上。

翻译：陈夏瑾 来源：前十网