Open Problems in Science

This page will build a list of open research questions at the so-called bleeding edge of science. This page makes no attempt to be complete, or even up-to-date. I will attempt to address each science wherever I can dig up the most important problems.

Archaeology

  1. How, and when, did agriculture develop?
  2. How can modern analytical techniques be used to gather information about artifacts?
  3. How did the first nations come into being?
  4. How do aboriginal cultures approach astronomy?
  5. How do complex societies come to be?
  6. How do human beings adapt?
  7. How do we accurately date artifacts?
  8. How do we reconstruction prehistoric and ancient life.
  9. In what ways did ancient peoples use plants?
  10. What were the environments of prehistoric and ancient humans like?.

Astronomy

  1. Are there active galactic nuclei?
  2. Are there black holes?
  3. Are there dwarf galaxies?
  4. Can we use cosmic rays for imaging?
  5. How are elements created in a star?
  6. How are large-scale cosmic structures formed?
  7. How are black holes formed?
  8. How are neutron stars formed?
  9. How can we detect Doppler shifts of spectral lines in the X-ray spectra of clusters?
  10. How do we detect interstellar absorption?
  11. How can we detect the kinetic S-Z effect?
  12. How did elements form during the Big Bang?
  13. How did the universe come into being?
  14. How do accretion discs behave?
  15. How do close binaries evolve?
  16. How do compact stars behave?
  17. How do cosmic rays create elements?
  18. How do astronomical dynamos behave?
  19. How do energetic cosmic rays behave?
  20. How do galactic superwinds behave?
  21. How do galaxies evolve?
  22. How do galaxies form?
  23. How do large-scale cosmic structures evolve?
  24. How do molecular clouds behave?
  25. How do pulsar wind nebulae behave?
  26. How do relativistic jets behave?
  27. How do relativistic jets form?
  28. How do stars evolve?
  29. How do stars form?
  30. How do massive stars structure the interstellar medium?
  31. How do stars explode in supernovae?
  32. How do supernova-drive super-bubbles behave?
  33. How do supernovae interact with their surroundsings?
  34. How do we design astronomical instruments?
  35. How do we design spectroscopic equipment?
  36. How do we design telescopes?
  37. How do we design telescopes with adaptive optics?
  38. How do we model supernovae?
  39. How do we perform interferometry?
  40. How does the cosmic microwave background behave?
  41. How does the phenomena of feedback of radiation behave in ionized gas?
  42. How old is the universe?
  43. How many stars have planets?
  44. How will the universe end?
  45. Is there life elsewhere in the universe?
  46. Were there cosmological phase transitions?
  47. What are extrasolar planets like?
  48. What are quasars?
  49. What are the chemical abundances of globular clusters?
  50. What are the dynamics of asteroid belts?
  51. What are the dynamics of circumstellar disks?
  52. What is dark energy?
  53. What is the behavior of a supernova?
  54. What is the behavior of dense cores of some giant molecular clouds?
  55. What is the behavior of the Lyman-alpha forest?
  56. What is the chemical evolution of a galaxy?
  57. What is the nature of dark matter?
  58. What is the power spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background?
  59. What is the structure of a star?
  60. What observations can we make with specific instruments?
  61. Why does the Sun produce fewer neutrinos that predicted?
  62. Will an asteroid hit the earth?

Atmospheric Science

  1. How are atmospheric constituents transported in the large scale?
  2. How are extratropical cyclones generated?
  3. How are tornadic storms differnet form other storms?
  4. How do atmospheric aerosols behave?
  5. How do clouds behave electrodynamically?
  6. How do mid-latitude mesoscale convective systems behave?
  7. How do nonprecipitating mixed-phase clouds behave?
  8. How do parameters in the planetary boundary layer exhibit turbulence?
  9. How do the air and sea interact?
  10. How do tropical convective systems behave?
  11. How do we forecast in-flight icing?
  12. How do we forecast in-flight turbulence?
  13. How do we forecast thunderstorms?
  14. How do we measure the chemistry of clouds?
  15. How do we measure the global cycling of trace elements in the troposphere?
  16. How do we model boundary layer flows?
  17. How do we model convective cloud clusters?
  18. How do we model squall lines?
  19. How do we model topographically forced waves and wakes?
  20. How do we model the dynamics of clouds?
  21. How do we reconstruct the history of climate?
  22. How does catalysis occur in the atmosphere?
  23. How does El Niño affect atmospheric change?
  24. How does La Niña affect atmospheric change?
  25. How does precipitation behave dynamically?
  26. How does precipitation behave electrodynamically?
  27. How does precipitation behave thermodynamically?
  28. How does topography induce flows?
  29. How does turbulence behave in rotating stratified flows?
  30. How is radiation absorbed in the atmosphere?
  31. How is radiation emitted in the atmosphere?
  32. How is turbulence transported in the atmosphere?
  33. How stable is the climate?
  34. Is the climate changing?
  35. What are the dynamics of clouds?
  36. What are the fluctuations in stratospheric ozone?
  37. What are the modes of tropical waves?
  38. What are the structural and optical properties of snow?
  39. What are the trends in stratospheric ozone?
  40. What is the behavior of supercells?
  41. What is the composition of the atmosphere?
  42. What is the limit of predictability?
  43. What is the mechanism for mid-latitude multicell convection?
  44. What is the role of air/sea exchange processes in global cycling of trace elements?
  45. What is the thermal behavior of clouds?
  46. What role does lightning play in severe storms?

Botany

  1. How do organs develop in the floral meristem?
  2. How do plant populations vary?
  3. How do plants develop?
  4. How do plants evolve?
  5. How do plants grow?
  6. How do plants interact with the atmosphere?
  7. How do plants respond to stress?
  8. How do we classify specific plants?
  9. How does germination occur?
  10. How does photosensory transduction occur?
  11. How does photosynthesis occur?
  12. How does pollination occur?
  13. What are the biomechanics of plants?
  14. What are the molecular systematics of plants?
  15. What are the physiological functions of ion channels in plant cells?
  16. What is the history of vegetation?
  17. What is the molecular basis for plant hormone action?
  18. What is the origin of plants?
  19. What is the process of isoprene emissions?

Cell and Molecular Biology

  1. Gene therapy.
  2. Regulation of gene expression.
  3. How does an organism develop?
  4. DNA repair.
  5. Apoptosis.
  6. Protein structure.
  7. Protein folding.
  8. Protein stability.
  9. Protein function.
  10. The role and evolution of cell surface receptor kinases.
  11. Cell fate determination in vertebrate embryonic development.
  12. Intracellular communication
  13. Cell proliferation.
  14. Cell growth.
  15. Cell-cell interactions.
  16. Mitochondrial decay in aging.
  17. Oxidants and antioxidants in DNA damage.
  18. Micronutrient deficiencies and DNA damage.
  19. Microtubule cytoskeleton.
  20. Cell cycle controls.
  21. The molecular biology of development.
  22. Biomechanics.
  23. Structure and function of enzymes and enzyme complexes involved in replication and chromosome structure.
  24. Left-right pattern formation in the vertebrate embryo.
  25. Molecular basis of cell surface interactions.
  26. Molecular recognition in biology.
  27. Genetics of cell architecture.
  28. Genetics of tissue architecture.
  29. Models of polygenic inheritance.
  30. Eukaryotic gene expression.
  31. Cell biology of photoreceptors.
  32. Regulation of viral and cellular gene expression in virus-infected cells.
  33. Tissue turnover.
  34. Isotope fractionation by enzymes.
  35. Codon bias.
  36. Secondary mRNA structure.
  37. Molecular systematics of specific species.
  38. Gene flow patterns within and between populations.
  39. Mechanisms of DNA damage.
  40. The structure characterization of biomolecules.
  41. The physico-chemical characterization of biomolecules.

Chemistry

  1. Chemical reactivity.
  2. Chemical catalysis in the Earth's stratosphere and troposphere.
  3. New reactions that are relevant to the synthesis of complex organic structures.
  4. Heterogeneous catalysis.
  5. Nanostructure growth.
  6. Precursor materials.
  7. Atomic layer deposition.
  8. Few body quantum mechanics.
  9. Trace element geochemistry.
  10. Transition element chemistry.
  11. The structural and optical properties of ice.
  12. Selective catalysis.
  13. The interaction between chemicals in porous media.
  14. Sediment biogeochemical processes.
  15. Chemistry and biology of natural products.
  16. Photopolymerizations.
  17. Nitrogen heterocycles.
  18. Amino acids.
  19. Metabolic antagonists.
  20. The relationship of chemical structure and biological activity.
  21. Stabilization of carbonium ions by organometallic compounds.
  22. Photocatalytic destruction of organic compounds.
  23. Enzymes of biosynthetic pathways.
  24. Isotope fractionation by enzymes.
  25. The role of photochemical processes in ecosystems.
  26. Modeling sprecific molecules.
  27. Binding properties of molecules.
  28. Solid state chemistry.
  29. Boron hydride chemistry.
  30. Separation of complex mixtures.
  31. Analysis of complex mixtures.
  32. Analysis of environmental pollutants.
  33. Carbohydrates.
  34. The of small molecules.
  35. Cavity ringdown spectroscopy.
  36. The structure characterization of biomolecules.
  37. The physico-chemical characterization of biomolecules.

Computer Science

  1. P = NP?
  2. What is the nature of complexity?
  3. Artificial intelligence.
  4. Virtual reality.
  5. Fuzzy logic.
  6. Concurrent distributed systems.
  7. Development of computational methods for mathematics and science.
  8. Computer algebra.
  9. Database management systems.
  10. Disk traffic models.
  11. Machine learning.
  12. Computer vision.
  13. Robotics.
  14. Image processing.
  15. Data mining.
  16. Distributed algorithms.
  17. Control of communications networks.
  18. Speech synthesis.
  19. Music synthesis.
  20. Adaptive computation.
  21. Data structures for graph compression.
  22. Multiprocessor garbage collection.
  23. Computational geometry.
  24. Functional algorithms.
  25. Thread scheduling.
  26. Cryptography.
  27. Relativistic quantum information theory.
  28. Quantum computing.

Electronic and Computer Technology

  1. Optical computing.
  2. DNA computing.
  3. Quantum Computing.
  4. High-speed semiconductor optoelectronic devices and circuits.
  5. Computer vision.
  6. Robotics.
  7. Image processing.
  8. Control of communications networks.
  9. Music synthesis.
  10. Active antennas.
  11. Passive antennas.
  12. Wireless communications.
  13. Electromagnetic measurements.
  14. Relativistic quantum information theory.

Engineering Science

  1. Electric Cars.
  2. Nanotechnology.
  3. Nanostructure growth.
  4. Robotics.
  5. Geometric phases.
  6. Mobile robots.
  7. Quantum control.
  8. Molecular scale motion control.
  9. Stochastic control and dynamic game theory.
  10. Minimax and robust estimation and control.
  11. Nonlinear control.
  12. Adaptive control.
  13. Control of communications networks.
  14. Self-organized formation of nanoscale structures.
  15. Stressed solids.
  16. Droplet breakup.
  17. Electrospinning.
  18. Diffusion and convection of chemicals in porous media.
  19. Laminar fluid flow in enclosures.
  20. Turbulent fluid flow in enclosures.
  21. Boundary layer flows.
  22. Heat conduction in layered composites.
  23. Bouyancy controlled flows.

Environmental Science

  1. How did life begin?
  2. Is there a limit to population increase?
  3. Biodiversity.
  4. Evolutionary origins of symbiosis.
  5. The rise of a diversity of ecological roles within a lineage.
  6. The geographic pattern of differentiation within species or closely related taxa.
  7. Physiological ecology.
  8. Lanscape ecology.
  9. Landscape restoration.
  10. Evolutionary origin of land plants.
  11. Atmospheric aerosols.
  12. Ecosystem response to climate change.
  13. Paleoecology.
  14. Trace element geochemistry.
  15. Hazardous waste management.
  16. Rapidly evolving species.
  17. Reinforcement of mechanisms that produce mating isolation.
  18. Models of polygenic inheritance.
  19. The role of air/sea exchange processes in global cycling of trace elements.
  20. Sedimentation.
  21. The interaction between chemicals in porous media.
  22. Diffusion and convection of chemicals in porous media.
  23. Sediment biogeochemical processes.
  24. Laminar fluid flow in enclosures.
  25. Turbulent fluid flow in enclosures.
  26. Heat conduction in layered composites.
  27. Landscape evolution.
  28. Effects of contaminants on aquatic organisms, populations, and communities.
  29. Bacterial communities in various environs.
  30. Impacts of microbial processes on water quality.
  31. Organic matter accretion in sediments.
  32. Rhizosphere effects on organic matter decay in anaerobic sediments.
  33. Population dynamics.
  34. Predator-prey interactions.
  35. The role of microbial processes in ecosystems.
  36. The role of photochemical processes in ecosystems.
  37. Population genetics.
  38. The mapping of biodiversity.
  39. Biodiversity of the rock-soil interface.
  40. Retrogressive evolution.
  41. Nutrient dynamics in ecosystems.
  42. Gene flow patterns within and between populations.
  43. The evolutionary significance of various behaviors.
  44. Analysis of environmental pollutants.

Geology

  1. How does the mantle move?
  2. Why does the earth's magnetic field reverse itself?
  3. Can we predict volcanic eruptions?
  4. Can we predict earthquakes?
  5. Mid-plate earthquakes.
  6. Paleoecology.
  7. Trace element geochemistry.
  8. The rheologic structure of the mantle.
  9. Lithospheric instabilities.
  10. Subduction zones.
  11. Sediment biogeochemical processes.
  12. Heat conduction in layered composites.
  13. Landscape evolution.
  14. Invertebrate paleontology.
  15. Vertebrate paleontology.
  16. Regional deformation within active continental collision zones.

Hydrology

  1. Saturated and unsaturated water flow in soils.
  2. Sedimentation.
  3. Sediment biogeochemical processes.
  4. Laminar fluid flow in enclosures.
  5. Turbulent fluid flow in enclosures.
  6. Boundary layer flows.
  7. Effects of contaminants on aquatic organisms, populations, and communities.
  8. The cycling of organic matter and nutrients in fresh-water systems.
  9. The role of microbial aprocesses in freshwater ecosystems.
  10. The role ofphotochemical processes in freshwater ecosystems.

Materials Science

  1. Nanostructure growth.
  2. Precursor materials.
  3. Atomic layer deposition.
  4. Nanopore fabrication.
  5. Nanoporous metals.
  6. Kinetics of nucleation and growth of solids far from equilibrium.
  7. Growth of thin films.
  8. Melting.
  9. Rapid solidification.
  10. Self diffusion.
  11. Dopant diffusion.
  12. Diffusion in refractory liquids.
  13. Covalently bound amorphous materials.
  14. Stressed solids.
  15. Electrospinning.
  16. Heat conduction in layered composites.
  17. Nanophase solids.

Mathematics

  1. Stable sets of a graph.
  2. Symmetric pseudoprimes.
  3. Representation of planar graphs.
  4. Normality of Euler's number e.
  5. Goldbach's conjecture.
  6. Catalan's conjecture.
  7. Rank and chromatic number of a graph.
  8. Linear recurring sequences.
  9. The number of twin primes.
  10. Equichordal points.
  11. Graphs with maximal rank.
  12. The half totient tree.
  13. The area of the smallest possible set conainting all curves of length 1.
  14. Are there infinitely many prime Fibonacci numbers?
  15. Is there a magic knight's tour on a chessboard?
  16. Is the sum of pi and Euler's number irrational?
  17. Chromatic number of unit-distance graphs.
  18. P vs. NP.
  19. Nordhaus-type conjectures.
  20. Limit cycles of xy (mod x+y).
  21. Lucas-Lehmer series.
  22. Digital reversal sums leading to palindromes.
  23. The Collatz conjecture.
  24. Tiling the unit square.
  25. Girth of unit distance graphs.
  26. The Poincaré conjecture.
  27. The Riemann hypothesis.
  28. Yang-Mills existence and mass gap.
  29. Navier-Stokes existence and smoothness.
  30. Stochastic control and dynamic game theory.
  31. Minimax and robust estimation and control.
  32. The Birch and Swinnerton-Dyer conjecture.
  33. Computational geometry.
  34. Langlands program.
  35. The abc conjecture.
  36. The Ablowitz-Ramani-Segur conjecture.
  37. Cryptography.
  38. Quantum groups.
  39. Motivic cohomology.
  40. Local and micro-laocal analysis of large finite groups.
  41. Infinite Banach spaces.
  42. Agoh's conjecture.
  43. Symplectic geometry.
  44. Hamiltonian dynamical systems.
  45. Surface mapping class groups.
  46. Character varieties of surfaces.
  47. Gromov-Witten theory.
  48. Automorphisms of models.
  49. Matrix methods.
  50. Algebraic modular forms.
  51. Galois representations.
  52. Theory of new forms.
  53. Stable distributions.

Microbiology

  1. Host-parasite relationships.
  2. Quorum sensing in bacteria.
  3. Fungal molecular systematics and phylogeny.
  4. Gene expression.
  5. Biomechanics.
  6. Photosensory transduction.
  7. Neurovirology.
  8. Regulation of viral and cellular gene expression in virus-infected cells.
  9. Bacterial communities in various environs.
  10. Impacts of microbial processes on water quality.
  11. Microbial genetics.
  12. Microbial ecology.
  13. Microbial resistance to select antibiotics.
  14. The role of microbial in ecosystems.
  15. Delay of microbial resistance.

Oceanography

  1. Air-sea interaction.
  2. The structural and optical properties of sea ice.
  3. The role of air/sea exchange processes in global cycling of trace elements.
  4. Sedimentation.
  5. Sediment biogeochemical processes.
  6. Boundary layer flows.
  7. Effects of contaminants on aquatic organisms, populations, and communities.
  8. The role of microbial processes in coastal ecosystems.
  9. The role of photochemical processes in coastal ecosystems.

Physics

  1. Is there a theory of everything?
  2. What is the nature of complexity?
  3. The search for the Higgs.
  4. How much of the world is chaotic?
  5. Is there a quantum theory of gravity?
  6. What is the fundamental nature of time?
  7. Is time travel possible?
  8. Are there gravitational waves?
  9. What is the lowest temperature?
  10. Mesoscopic physics.
  11. Yang-Mills existence and mass gap.
  12. Image processing.
  13. Geometric phases.
  14. Few body quantum mechanics.
  15. Quantum scattering theory.
  16. Quantum chaos.
  17. The genesis of spatial patterns in simple systems.
  18. Droplet breakup.
  19. Gravitational collapse.
  20. Sonoluminescence.
  21. Boundary layer flows.
  22. The definition of a mass scale.
  23. The physics of molecular collisions.
  24. Hamiltonian dynamical systems.
  25. Quantum cohomology.
  26. Poincaré symmetry.
  27. Particle scattering.
  28. Particle decay.
  29. Relativistic quantum information theory.
  30. Quantum computing.
  31. Neutrino production in nuclear matter.
  32. Equation of state for nuclear matter.

Zoology

  1. What is the nature of aging?
  2. How much of behavior is genetic?
  3. Cell fate determination in vertebrate embryonic development.
  4. Neural computation in the retina.
  5. Coding, computation and learning in the nervous system.
  6. Biomechanics.
  7. Left-right pattern formation in the vertebrate embryo.
  8. Photosensory transduction.
  9. Neurovirology.
  10. Avian vocalizations.
  11. The distribution of amphibians.
  12. The behavior of amphibians.
  13. Physiological adaptations.
  14. The relation between visually-guided behaviors in animals and maturation of retinal neurons, circuits, and receptor mechanisms.
  15. Alterations in neuron development due to mutation or drug action.
  16. Mating strategies.
  17. The evolutionary significance of various behaviors.
  18. Reproductive cells and associated structures.

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