http://www.businessinsider.com/the-end-of-physics-as-we-know-it-2016-1 In this article, Harry Cliff, a scientist from CERN, explains how in 2-3 years, we may not be able to learn anything else about our universe. This is because findings from scientists show things happening in the universe that directly contradict the theory of general relativity and the theory of quantum mechanics. What are these findings? They're the Higgs Field, and dark energy. The Higgs Field was discovered back in 2012 and is a field of energy that is used to charge particles, turning them into protons, neutrons and electrons. There's just one problem. [quote]According to Einstein's theory of general relativity and the theory of quantum mechanics — the two theories in physics that drive our understanding of the cosmos on incredibly large and extremely small scales — the Higgs field should be performing one of two tasks, says Cliff. Either it should be turned off, meaning it would have a strength value of zero and wouldn't be working to give particles mass, or it should be turned on, and, as the theory goes, this "on value" is "absolutely enormous," Cliff says. But neither of those two scenarios are what physicists observe. "In reality, the Higgs field is just slightly on," says Cliff. "It's not zero, but it's ten-thousand-trillion times weaker than it's fully on value — a bit like a light switch that got stuck just before the 'off' position. And this value is crucial. If it were a tiny bit different, then there would be no physical structure in the universe."[/quote] And there's the first problem. These theories that have proved again and again to always be right, are now wrong. They say the Higgs Field should either be all the way on, or all the way off, but in reality, it's only slightly on, which is good because we can survive those levels, but bad because now we've got a blatant contradiction between theories that have been right about everything until now, and an energy field that is all but 100% proven due to CERN discovering a particle that could only be created if that field was present. Next up we have dark energy. Dark energy is something so complex, so mysterious, and so hard to figure out that even the greatest minds of this generation have trouble with it, but the best (and most likely) theory right now is that it's the energy of nothing; the empty black space in the universe. Think of it as the universe's largest vacuum. It's so astonishingly powerful, in fact, that since it was discovered in 1996 as the reason the universe is expanding, scientists have only recently discovered what it's power is. Or, as you're about to see, what it [i]should[/i] be. [quote]"Dark energy should be 10 to the 120th power* times stronger than the value we observe from astronomy," Cliff said. "This is a number so mind-bogglingly huge that it's impossible to get your head around ... this number is bigger than any number in astronomy — it's a thousand-trillion-trillion-trillion times bigger than the number of atoms in the universe. That's a pretty bad prediction." On the bright side, we're lucky that dark energy is smaller than theorists predict. If it followed our theoretical models, then the repulsive force of dark energy would be so huge that it would literally rip our universe apart. The fundamental forces that bind atoms together would be powerless against it and nothing could ever form — galaxies, stars, planets, and life as we know it would not exist. On the other hand, it's extremely frustrating that we can't use our current theories of the universe to develop a better measurement of dark energy that agrees with existing observations. Even better than improving our theories would be to find a way that we can understand why the strength of dark energy and the Higgs field is what it is.[/quote] So the strength of both the Higgs Field and dark energy combine to make one of, if not the biggest scientific mystery in history. And right now, scientists have absolutely nothing that gives a reason as to why this is. Except, there is one idea that could make this whole thing make perfect sense. Problem is, it's one of the most complex, impossible, and downright insane ideas to ever exist. [quote]If we could somehow confirm that our universe is just one in a vast multiverse of billions of other universes, then "suddenly we can understand the weirdly fine-tuned values of these two dangerous numbers• [because] in most of the multiverse dark energy is so strong that the universe gets torn apart, or the Higgs field is so weak that no atoms can form," Cliff said. To prove this, physicists need to discover new particles that would uphold radical theories like string theory, which predicts the existence of a multiverse. Right now, there's only one place in the world that could possibly produce these particles, if they exist, and that's the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. And physicists only have two to three years before CERN shuts the LHC down for upgrades. If we haven't found anything by then, Cliff said, it could signal the beginning of the end.[/quote] The multiverse theory. Something that has always been in the realm of science fiction and radical theories. Now, the multiverse theory (specifically string theory) is the only thing scientists can think of that can explain this mystery. The issue is that the multiverse theory has always been one of the most radical scientific theories to come out of the modern age. The only way scientists could prove this theory, and in turn, explain the paradox is by using the Large Hadron Collider at CERN to discover new particles that would support the theory. But like it says, the collider is set to be shut down for upgrades in 2-3 years. That means that the guys and girls at CERN have 2-3 years to prove the existence of the multiverse. The article ends with this haunting thought from Cliff. [quote]"We may be entering a new era in physics. An era where there are weird features in the universe that we cannot explain. An era where we have hints that we live in a multiverse that lies frustratingly beyond our reach. An era where we will never be able to answer the question why is there something rather than nothing."[/quote] We're getting to the point where we may not be able to learn anything else, where we have to just accept that there are gaps in our logic, because we have no way of filling those gaps. We may soon reach a point where we can't discover anything more, not because we don't want to, but because we [i]can't[/i]. And that is a scary thought. I highly recommend you read the original article I linked, as it goes into a much deeper explanation than I did. [spoiler]Tl;dr: We may be at a point where we're gonna run out of ways to explain and discover science. Either that or we prove that there are alternate dimensions.[/spoiler] *Changed it to 20 and the 120th power because b.net does not let you write it the regular way. •"two dangerous numbers" refers to the strength of the Higgs Field and dark energy.