Editor's Choice
Use your bold imagination to push the infinite boundaries of the universe, explore the future of humanity in incredible ways, and feel real life in scientific hypotheses.
A collection of scientific "brain holes" that challenge the mainstream and rebel against tradition. Defying common sense? Have one's head in the clouds? Weird and offbeat? Take you back to the tortuous path of proving those outlandish theories.
5 major scientific themes, 25 wonderful ideas, covering the "history of the development of alternative science" in many fields such as cosmology, geology, biology, anthropology, archaeology, history, etc.
Daily Mail", "Publishers Weekly", "Boston Globe", "Pittsburgh Post" and many other **** recommended interesting popular science, the world's popular "Prank Museum" founder Alex Boyce's new masterpiece.
Every strange idea in everyday life could be a real future scenario! "
Introduction
Have you ever had any of these "brain holes"?
Human beings are a string of ** in the virtual world of computers;
The Earth is expanding every year;
Disease is biochemical ** dropped by aliens;
Jesus is an apparition of a mushroom;
Humans are getting dumber every day......
If it's all true, can you believe it?
A science popularization of all things that subverts common sense, and a collection of "brain holes" that includes more than a dozen disciplines such as astronomy, geology, biology, anthropology, and archaeology. From the creation of the universe to the evolution of human beings, from the birth of consciousness to the rise of civilization, even absurd assumptions can be verified by re-observing the world from a countermainstream perspective.
About the Author:
Alex Boese
Master of Science in the History of Science from the University of California, San Diego. In 1997, he founded the "Hoax Museum", which has accumulated more than 100 million users worldwide. The American IT magazine "Computer" named it one of the "100 things you can't miss in the world". He has published a number of books in the fields of physics, chemistry, and psychology.
About the translator:
Ma Yingjia. He graduated from the School of Journalism, Fudan University, majoring in advertising. He worked as a translator of TV documentary scripts in a media company. The fields of translation cover astronomy, animal and nature, history and humanities, etc. His translations include "Crazy Science Experiments" and so on.
Wonderful book review
For science lovers, if you want to be inspired by science, don't miss this book! The unexpected assumptions in this book will give you a different perspective on the mysteries of science.
Pittsburgh Post
This book provides readers with a unique window into science, documenting scientific hypotheses in multiple disciplines such as cosmology, geology, biology, anthropology, and more, transforming our understanding of the world.
Publishers Weekly
This book is just so fascinating. The author uses witty and humorous language to tell about long-standing, strange and unbelievable scientific hypotheses. Once immersed in it, you'll discover new worlds.
The Cox Book Review
Reading this book is like looking at science with the help of a haha mirror. While laughing, it prompts you to study a subject more deeply.
Chemistry World
Table of Contents
Preface. Chapter yi: The Cosmic Problem.
If the universe was big ** never happened.
Is our universe actually a virtual world of computers?
There is only one electron in the whole universe?
Do we live in black holes?
Will we live forever?
Chapter 2 An Unusually Dull Blue Dot.
Is the Earth at the center of the universe?
Planets will **?
There are two suns in the solar system?
Tens of millions of comets hit the Earth every year?
Is the Earth expanding?
Chapter 3 It Is Alive.
Everything is conscious?
Disease from space?
The earth has inexhaustible reserves of oil and gas?
Does alternative life exist on Earth?
We've found extraterrestrial life?
Chapter 4: The Rise of the Psychedelic Ape.
Dinosaurs extinct in a nuclear war?
Our ancestors were Ahuizotl?
Our ancestors were a mixed pig and chimpanzee?
What makes us evolve?
Are humans getting stupid?
Chapter 5: The Mushroom God and the Phantom Age.
Ancient Humans Guided by Illusions?
Is Homer a woman?
Jesus is a mushroom?
Jesus was Julius Caesar?
Never existed in the early Middle Ages?
Postscript. Thanks.
References. 
I had an appointment with the authorWonderful book excerptsThere are two suns in the solar system?
Something in outer space is killing the inhabitants of Earth. Every 26 million years, it kills a large number of living beings and has caused the total extinction of many species.
In the early '80s, paleontologists John Sepkawskin and David Loupp of the University of Chicago first discovered the existence of this alien killer, compiling marine fossils found in sedimentary rocks into a huge database. This is the most complete database of its kind, allowing them to look at a wide range of evolutionary patterns, such as when certain families of marine life became extinct, how often extinction events occurred, and so on.
While plotting the data, they discovered something shocking. There is a clear cyclical nature of mass extinctions. There can't be anything wrong with the peaks in their charts. In the last 250 million years, about every 26 million years, entire groups of species have suddenly disappeared. They double-checked the data, but the periodicity seemed to be a real phenomenon.
They wondered, what caused this periodic mass extinction? They can't think of any natural phenomenon on Earth that repeats itself on a 26-million-year cycle. So, when the discovery was made public in 1983, they suggested that the mass death must have been caused by something extraterrestrial – that there was a cosmic serial killer at work.
The killing mystery of the universe quickly attracted the attention of scientists. As the "detectives" take on the case, they quickly decide that if something from the universe is periodically killing life on Earth, it's almost certainly one of the two: an asteroid or a comet. Asteroids are massive rocks in nature, while comets are a mixture of large chunks of ice, dust, and rock. If either of the two were large enough to hit the Earth, it could cause severe death and destruction.
But these are just killings. The more puzzling question is what exactly is "wielding" these**. There must be some astronomical phenomenon that periodically throws these celestial bodies in our direction. But what is it in the universe that can show such a pattern of regular repetition on such a long time scale?
Laupe and Sepkawin came up with the idea that the spiral arm of the galaxy might be the culprit. Our solar system orbits the center of the Milky Way every 230 million years, but we move slightly faster than the spiral arms of the Milky Way. As a result, in the course of our movement, we enter and exit the spiral arm. In all likelihood, whenever we enter a spiral arm, the slightly denser material there gravitationally interferes with the orbit of asteroids and comets, causing many of these objects to fall into the interior of the solar system, some of which hit the Earth.
It's an interesting idea, but analysis shows that its cycle is completely wrong. It is only every 100 million years that we travel into a spiral arm. This gives the spiral arms a good alibi: they can't be killers.
NASA scientists Michael Lampino and Richard Stoser offer another idea. They propose that the criminals could be flat silver plates of the galaxy. The Milky Way is a large, flat disk of matter that spins around the center. Our solar system moves with it, but as it moves, it fluctuates up and down, floating slightly above the surface of the silver disk, then settling below the surface, and so on. The researchers claim that every time our solar system passes through the galactic disk of the Milky Way, it can cause gravitational disturbances that interfere with the comets' orbits and send them into orbit that collides with the Earth.
The length of this cycle is roughly correct. We pass through the silver platter of the Milky Way once every 33 million years. But it looks like there are other problems. The matter in the galactic silver disk is spread out widely. Astronomers have a hard time believing how much perturbation there will be through it. And, we are currently in the middle of the galactic silver plate. If Lampino and Stosser's hypothesis is correct, then we should be experiencing a mass extinction, but according to the timeline drawn by Laupe and Sepkawskin, the next mass extinction will not come in another 13 million years—and we are lucky. Therefore, the two cycles do not coincide. The "suspect" still has an alibi.
After the Milky Way spiral arm and silver disk were ruled out, physicist Richard Mill at the University of California came forward with a more radical hypothesis. He asserted that there are two suns in our solar system. One that we are already familiar with, that we all know and love, but that there is also a companion star, a twin brother of the **, that periodically throws comets at us.
Even those who think they don't know anything about astronomy are convinced of at least one basic fact: there is only one sun in our solar system. Look up at the sky, and there it is, glowing with dazzling light. There won't be two suns like Luke Skywalker's home planet Tatooine. Therefore, it may seem counterintuitive to claim that our solar system actually has two suns. However, Mill had reasonable arguments to support his claims, and astronomers were willing to listen to his arguments.
This hypothesis was largely the brainchild of Mill, but he also received the help of Mark Davis of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in the United States and Pier Hut of Princeton University to refine the details of the hypothesis. The hypothesis was detailed in a 1984 article in the journal Nature, in which all three co-authors signed the article. They explained that our Sun may have a distant companion star, orbiting the Sun in an extremely long elliptical orbit, and it would take 26 million years to complete one revolution. At its farthest point, the companion star will be 14 trillion miles away from our Sun, but it will get closer and closer, reaching only 3 trillion miles at its closest.
At this distance, it passes through the Oort cloud, a huge cloud of trillions of comets that surrounds us at the very edge of the solar system. Every time it passes through it, it derails billions of comets out of their orbits, sending them into the solar system. Some of these billions of comets will inevitably end up crashing into Earth. After this devastation, the dead planet will return to the depths of space, embarking on its long journey in an arc, returning again in the next 26 million years. The three authors imply that this cycle has been repeating itself for hundreds of millions of years.
As an explanation of the anti-mass extinction event, this hypothesis does make sense. This time, there is no such thing as a mismatch in the period that can issue an alibi to the Dead Planet. More notably, could there be any other explanation? Astronomers can't think of anything else in the universe that could throw a comet at us every 26 million years.
The authors also propose that most of the known stars—more than two-thirds—are considered companions. Therefore, it is more likely that our Sun belongs to a binary star system in a statistical sense. It is true that the Sun's companion star needs to have an extremely unusual orbit to allow it to pass through the Oort cloud only once every 26 million years, but this is not impossible – it is just a little anomalous.
The three authors suggested naming the Sun's hypothetical companion star "Nemesis" (taken from the goddess of vengeance in ancient Greek mythology). At the same time, they also wrote that if the name is not good, it can be replaced by George. This is clearly an attempt to show scientific humor. However, George did not pass the editorial review. The editors of Nature made the decision and chose the name Nemesis.
There is only one problem with this hypothesis, which they mention in a slightly understatement: "The main difficulty with our model is that the Sun clearly lacks a distinct companion star. ”
This is really an important detail. If we had a second sun in our solar system, you'd think someone might have noticed it by now. But not necessarily, they claim: Nemesis could be a red dwarf. These red dwarfs are the most common type of star in the Milky Way, but they are smaller and very faint, a fraction of the size of the more familiar Sun. This explains why no one has ever seen it. It blends in with all the other stars in the background, so you can't find it. However, now that people are aware of the possibility of its existence, the search for it can begin.
The argument against Nemesis is entirely plausible. If this second sun does exist, it could well explain the puzzle of the puzzling periodic recurrence of mass extinctions. Therefore, the scientific community has seriously considered this hypothesis. However, there are some among the skeptics who are a little unimpressed with it. Not only because people are generally wary of the idea of a dead planet, but because they have heard similar claims before. In the 80s of the 20th century, there was already a well-established but slightly marginalized astronomical tradition in which it was suspected that some kind of giant celestial body – often referred to as Planet X – was located at the edge of the solar system and had not yet been discovered.
Finding hidden things naturally has a mysterious appeal. It stimulates people's imagination. A significant number of disciplines are characterized precisely by this search. Biology has an active subculture of mystical zoologists who are convinced that nature is full of undiscovered creatures, most notably the Squatch and the Loch Ness Monster. Similarly, archaeological explorers have long been fascinated by finding lost cities such as the ** country. These searches can easily take on the flavor of fanaticism and obsession, and the search for Planet X is no exception.
When astronomer William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he planted the seeds of the search for planet X. Until then, no one had thought that there would be undiscovered planets in the solar system. Everyone thought that the list of the solar system was complete. After realizing that the opposite might be true, the search began.
The search soon bore fruit, and the French astronomer Huerban Le Vervier discovered Neptune in 1846, following clues to the irregularities in Uranus' orbit. But his discovery not only did not meet people's expectations for the missing planet, but only whetted people's appetites. Planets, moons, and asteroids were soon brought in to check for anomalies in their orbits. Any anomaly found will be claimed as evidence of yet another planet's existence.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the wealthy American businessman, astronomer Percival Rowell, coined the word planet X. He believed that there was a huge planet beyond Neptune, which is how he named the planet. He spent the last decade of his life trying to find it. Although he was unsuccessful until his death, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh continued his search. In 1930, Tombau discovered Pluto. However, scientists later realized that Pluto was just a dwarf planet, not even as big as our moon, and planet X enthusiasts began to get agitated again. This isn't the giant planet the size of Jupiter they're looking for. So, the search continued.
In 1984, when Müller proposed the Nemesis hypothesis, skeptics with this history in mind couldn't help but wonder if this was the latest and largest search for Planet X. Except now, the mysterious missing object is no longer just a planet, it has been upgraded to a sun.