Time to get cracking on other mysteries

That the theory of why knuckles and many other joints crack when pressed in a certain way has finally got mathematical ‘proof ’ may seem a small step for science but it’s a giant leap for more than a handful of nervous nellies. For centuries, the simple act of knuckle-cracking has not got the attention it deserved, considering its prevalence.

So, the two researchers at France’s École Polytechnique must be commended for devising a mathematical model proving the old theory that the sound is due to the popping of a gas bubble in the joint, as mundane as that may seem. It is not often that a long-standing, important puzzle is finally solved after all.

The only comparable recent feat is probably the software model produced by a couple of Cambridge University researchers in 2013 to show how air flows at a certain speed inside a boiling kettle causing small swirling vortices that then produce that distinctive whistling sound.


A perusal of even a few of the innumerable mysteries that remain unsolved would put this recent feat in perspective, from the Fermi paradox — why have we not discovered alien life despite the high probability of their existence — to a definitive scientific reason for what makes us human, considering 99% of our DNA is identical to those of chimpanzees. It is definitely time to knuckle down and get cracking.