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(more unsolved problems in physics) In cosmology , the cosmological constant problem or vacuum catastrophe is the substantial disagreement between the observed values of vacuum energy density (the small value of the cosmological constant ) and the much larger theoretical value of zero-point energy suggested by quantum field theory .
Some of the major unsolved problems in physics are theoretical, meaning that existing theories seem incapable of explaining a certain observed phenomenon or experimental result. The others are experimental, meaning that there is a difficulty in creating an experiment to test a proposed theory or investigate a phenomenon in greater detail.
The ancient Greek understanding of physics was limited to the statics of simple machines (the balance of forces), and did not include dynamics or the concept of work. During the Renaissance the dynamics of the Mechanical Powers, as the simple machines were called, began to be studied from the standpoint of how far they could lift a load, in addition to the force they could apply, leading ...
In mathematics, the Navier–Stokes equations are a system of nonlinear partial differential equations for abstract vector fields of any size. In physics and engineering, they are a system of equations that model the motion of liquids or non-rarefied gases (in which the mean free path is short enough so that it can be thought of as a continuum mean instead of a collection of particles) using ...
In solid-state physics, the work function (sometimes spelled workfunction) is the minimum thermodynamic work (i.e., energy) needed to remove an electron from a solid to a point in the vacuum immediately outside the solid surface. Here "immediately" means that the final electron position is far from the surface on the atomic scale, but still too ...
The block-stacking problem is the following puzzle: Place N {\displaystyle N} identical rigid rectangular blocks in a stable stack on a table edge in such a way as to maximize the overhang. Paterson et al. (2007) provide a long list of references on this problem going back to mechanics texts from the middle of the 19th century.
In physics, the phase problem is the problem of loss of information concerning the phase that can occur when making a physical measurement. The name comes from the field of X-ray crystallography , where the phase problem has to be solved for the determination of a structure from diffraction data. [ 1 ]
The Yang–Mills existence and mass gap problem is an unsolved problem in mathematical physics and mathematics, and one of the seven Millennium Prize Problems defined by the Clay Mathematics Institute, which has offered a prize of US$1,000,000 for its solution. The problem is phrased as follows: [1] Yang–Mills Existence and Mass Gap.