Imagine being on a plane in a storm, the plane goes up and down, but your eyes see no apparent movement, causing dizziness. Dizziness occurs when the central nervous system receives asynchronous signals from five systems.
Dizziness is a disorder of maintaining balance in space. Our body maintains balance through various systems: the inner ear detects the up-and-down movement of the head; the eyes perceive the body's movements in space; pressure against the ground; muscles, joints, and bones sense the movement of limbs and body.
The central nervous system coordinates all this information, providing us with a sense of our position in space. Dizziness occurs when the central nervous system receives asynchronous signals from these five systems.


2. Why does looking down from a height make you dizzy?
Ascending to heights exposes you to air pressure and wind, along with visual stimuli when looking down. These factors affect the equilibrium structure in the ear, causing a temporary loss of balance sensation, leading to dizziness and even nausea, similar to motion sickness.
The cerebellum, responsible for balance, is also influenced. Strong stimuli impact the cerebral cortex, the highest nervous command center, through vision and hearing, affecting the cerebellum with a series of rapid biological electrical activities, disrupting its function briefly, causing dizziness. So, why does this happen at high floors and not when climbing a mountain? The answer is quite simple.
As you ascend to a higher floor, the vertical contrast with the surroundings is more pronounced, creating a more intense stimulus. Climbing a mountain, even if it's much taller than a building, the gradual increase in altitude and the less distinct contrast with the surroundings result in a milder stimulus, affecting the human nervous system less.


3. Why do ears pop during takeoff and landing of an airplane?
Simply put, when an airplane takes off or lands, it needs to pitch the nose higher than the tail. For example, during takeoff, the front must rise higher first, and conversely, during landing, the rear landing gear needs to touch the runway before balancing the weight of the airplane. The ear part, as you mentioned, cups down to direct the airflow towards the ground, simultaneously lifting the airplane for takeoff or lowering it for a safe, gentle landing. The simple principle here is the need for thrust to lift the airplane.
Ears popping during a flight occurs when the pressure in the middle ear and the environmental pressure are imbalanced, causing the eardrum to vibrate abnormally. In the ear, there is a part called the Eustachian tube (connected to the middle ear) responsible for regulating and balancing pressure. However, during takeoff and landing, the air pressure changes rapidly, and the Eustachian tube often doesn't react quickly enough, causing symptoms of ear popping during a flight. Swallowing or yawning expands the Eustachian tube, allowing more air to enter the middle ear, rebalancing the pressure.


4. How are clouds formed?
Tiny water droplets or ice particles form clouds in the sky. When sunlight shines on lakes, rivers, oceans, it causes water in these areas to evaporate and rise into the atmosphere. The water vapor then condenses and crystallizes into tiny water droplets or ice particles, floating in the air. These are the whimsical clouds that children often gaze at.
Clouds in the sky can be high or low, with high clouds at around 10 km and low clouds at only a few dozen meters. There are many reasons for cloud formation, with the main cause being moist air rising. The volume of these water droplets is very small, making up the components of clouds, with an average radius of only a few micrometers. However, they have a high density and a very slow rate of decrease in the air, allowing them to be retained in the atmosphere. Therefore, they can float in the air and become clouds.

5. Why is the night sky black?
In 1965, with the introduction of the Big Bang theory, scientists demonstrated that the universe is not eternal but has a starting point in the past. The night is dark because there aren't enough stars to fill the entire sky, and the number and lifespan of stars are finite;
In addition, Edwin Hubble's 1929 astronomical research on the Doppler effect of light emitted by galaxies revealed that galaxies are gradually moving away from their initial positions. As a result, light requires more and more energy to reach us, causing galaxies to dim, the brightness in the celestial sphere decreases, and the thickness of the dark night increases.

6. Why do ocean waves appear white?
In essence, ocean waves can be considered as shattered glass particles. To help us better understand and explain why the sea is blue but the waves appear white, let's delve into the properties of glass. If we shatter a colorless transparent glass, the glass fragments remain transparent, but when gathered into a pile, it becomes increasingly white. The more shattered the glass, the whiter the color of the pile. Particularly, if the glass is shattered into glass particles resembling powder, it looks like a pile of snow.
Why is that? Because glass can transmit sunlight, and in addition to the reflection phenomenon, there are many instances of refraction. The beams of light, after undergoing multiple refractions or scattering in different directions, when our eyes capture those beams, they create a sensation of whiteness. Ocean waves work similarly; they also make the beams of light hazy, so when observed, ocean waves appear white.

7. Why are leaves green?
This question might be easier to answer, as biology has addressed it before. Leaves are green because there is a significant proportion of chlorophyll, the green substance, in the leaf cells. Sunlight consists of 7 colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Chlorophyll is green because it absorbs light of other colors, especially red and blue, but does not absorb green, reflecting this color. Therefore, we perceive the green color of the leaves.
In addition, the two sides of a leaf have different shades because the chlorophyll on the upper side facing the sun is more abundant than the lower side facing the ground. Newly grown leaves are often light green because there is less chlorophyll at that time. As they mature, the chlorophyll increases, and the leaves become darker green.

8. Why do rainbows appear?
In times before scientific advancements, rainbows were believed to bring wonders and mysteries. For those following the Christian faith, they believed that after the Great Flood, God placed a rainbow in the sky and told Noah, 'This is a sign of a new covenant between God and the Earth.' Meanwhile, ancient Greeks considered the rainbow to be the goddess Iris.
In reality, a rainbow is essentially the reflection of sunlight through water droplets in the air, a phenomenon known as light refraction. Only when passing through a glass lens, rays of light are refracted to create a continuous spectrum of colors we call a rainbow. Here, water droplets can play the role of a lens, refracting sunlight, but with the condition that sunlight must encounter the droplet at a relatively small angle, known as the deviation angle of the rainbow.

9. Why do we dream during sleep?
Dreaming is the phenomenon where the human mind experiences images, imaginary sounds, and intense emotions while asleep. Dreaming is not exclusive to humans; it's observed in most birds and mammals. Dreams are categorized into 2 types: regular dreams and lucid dreams.
We don't just lay down and sleep through the night; instead, our bodies undergo various intricate changes during sleep. The sleep cycle consists of 4 stages: light sleep, deep sleep, and REM sleep (rapid eye movement stage). The duration of one sleep cycle is 90 minutes. In a night of 7-8 hours, an average person goes through 4-6 sleep cycles.
Even today, the realm of dreaming holds many unexplained mysteries, making it an intriguing subject that captivates the attention of scientists. Each person has a different brain, living conditions, relationships, lifestyles, and sleep times. All these differences lead to various dreams, including spiritual dreams and subconscious thoughts or sometimes, dreams that hold no significant meaning.


10. Why is the sky blue?
As light enters Earth's atmosphere, short wavelengths get absorbed and scattered by gas molecules. Sunlight consists of various colors, each with a different wavelength. Short-wavelength light, like blue, gets scattered in all directions by air molecules, tinting the sky blue. When you look upwards, the sky appears blue.
You might wonder why the sky isn't violet since violet has an even shorter wavelength than blue. The main reason lies in how the human eye perceives colors. When the sky is a mix of blue and violet, the eye's cone cells react to create a blend of blue and white, similar to mixing red and green to get yellow. In the end, the neural signal sent to the brain is interpreted as blue.

11. Why does fog occur?
Fog is the phenomenon where water vapor in the atmosphere condenses into tiny water droplets suspended in the air, reducing our visibility. Both fog and mist are hazardous meteorological events, especially for road, river, maritime, and air transportation, causing obstacles and significant losses each year.
In our country, fog frequently occurs from late autumn to late spring, peaking during the winter months. With increasing air pollution, fog and mist have become more prevalent and intense.
Fog, a familiar and intriguing meteorological phenomenon, does not occur all the time. Essentially, several conditions must be met for fog formation:
- The relative humidity of the air must be high.
- The air temperature must be relatively low.
- Weak or calm winds.
Fog often forms when moist air from bodies of water moves to areas with lower surface temperatures.

12. Why do people grind their teeth during sleep?
Teeth grinding during sleep is a sleep movement disorder that causes the clenching of teeth, creating pressure on the teeth and producing a grinding sound. While teeth grinding is a common habit, grinding during sleep is a medical condition. If prolonged and frequent, it not only disrupts the sleep of the individual but can also lead to damage and various serious complications for your teeth and jaw.
Teeth grinding is a common habit, but grinding during sleep is a medical condition. If prolonged and frequent, it not only disrupts the sleep of the individual but can also lead to damage and various serious complications for your teeth and jaw.
The condition involves the clenching and grinding of teeth, creating pressure on the teeth and potentially producing a grinding sound. If you experience teeth grinding, it may occur involuntarily while awake or during sleep. Teeth grinding is associated with some mental disorders, such as Parkinson's disease, dementia, gastroesophageal reflux disease, epilepsy, night terrors, sleep disorders like sleep apnea, and hyperactivity/attention deficit.


13. How do our ears determine the direction of sound?
The structure of the human ear consists of the outer ear, middle ear, and inner ear. When both ears receive a signal, the situation is different. One of the criteria for determining the direction of sound is the time difference between the two ears. If the sound source is on the right side of the listener, the sound waves reach the right ear slightly faster than the left ear for a moment. Using an accurate clock, even a time difference of only 30% of a second allows us to perceive the direction of the sound.
A psychological experiment showed that if only one ear receives stimulation from two groups of sound waves in succession, with equal intensity and distance but different directions, the effect of the sound waves on the ear is the same. Thus, it is impossible to distinguish the direction of the sound source. However, when both ears receive the signal, the situation changes.
Another criterion for determining the direction of sound is the difference in sound intensity. The sound source may hit one ear slightly stronger than the other. Even a small difference in intensity is enough for us to accurately determine the position of the sound on the left or right.


