Small book of unsolved questions

By: Bishnu Goswami

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

The one quality that separates man from the beasts is the superpower of curiosity. Although many animals, chiefly mammals, have shown some indications of a curiosity drive, it is much smaller in scope and is limited to the immediate goals and is almost never abstract.

The author remembers one particular incident of elephants painting art on a social media site. While it was shared by many curious humans, including university professors, the leap in curiosity of non-humans was too good to be true. And subsequent investigations proved it to be false indeed.

In such a situation, it is no wonder that we as a species have solved innumerable problems that have come over the centuries and millennia of our civilizations. But how far are we in solving the biggest problems, open questions, that lay bare? This book is a guide to some of those open problems.

Spanning almost every major subjects, this set of open problems are introduced in a small section followed by a deeper dive in one or two subsequent section(s). There, the greater need of a solution, be it societal, economic or political, is discussed. Some of the problems are more abstract and have little input in practical matters, but the huge gulp between the simplicity of the statement of the problem and its solution is the most remarkable and is evocative of humanity's superpower, curiosity.

Hope you enjoy the read!