Where explanation breaks

Locate an open question the course leads to, and map exactly where present physics stops being enough to answer it.

Due: 30 October 2026 · Weight: 50%

By Week 12, the course has run out of things it can explain by pushing an existing idea one step further. A white dwarf’s mass limit is a mechanism failing at a boundary we can calculate exactly. A black hole’s centre is two successful theories that simply do not join up. Most of the universe’s gravitating matter, and whatever is accelerating its expansion, are not failures of theory at all — they are things physics has not yet identified. None of those is the same kind of not-knowing, and treating one as another is itself a mistake.

The brief#

Choose one open question connected to the course, and map the boundary of what present physics can and cannot say about it.

Pick a question the course has actually led you to, at any point in the chain, not necessarily from the final weeks. State what is established about it — the part physics has genuinely settled. State what is inferred — conclusions that follow from evidence and theory but are not directly observed. State what remains uncertain, and be specific about why: is a support mechanism approaching a known limit, are two working theories failing to combine, or is something simply unidentified?

You are not being asked to close the gap. A submission that proposes a personal theory of dark matter or quantum gravity has missed the brief. The task is to draw the boundary accurately and explain why it sits where it does — to locate the edge without pretending it has moved.

What you submit#

A written piece, around 1,200 to 1,800 words, built around the one question you chose. Cite where your claims about what is established, inferred, and uncertain come from — this is the piece where sourcing your claims matters most, because the whole argument rests on getting that boundary right.