34 Really Fascinating Hypothesis & Theories

The theory of an infinite universe was first proposed by a Greek philosopher named Archytas of Tarentum around 400 B.C., reasoning that even if he did reach the end of the universe he would still be able to extend his staff beyond the boundary.

2. Nixon's strategy during Vietnam was called the Madman Theory and it focused on making the enemy think Nixon was insane and if provoked would act irrationally.

3. Hitler's chief architect, Albert Speer, was an adherent of the "theory of ruin value." His architectural goal was constructing buildings that would later collapse into aesthetically-pleasing ruins over the course of thousands of years.

4. Black Swan Theory states that rare catastrophic events which are beyond the realm of normal expectation or predictability (but later inappropriately rationalized by hindsight) play a vastly larger role in the course of history than any predictable or foreseeable occurrence.

5. The intense world theory suggests that Autistic people do not lack empathy/emotion. They shut down because they are overloaded by emotions due to hypersensitivity and are not able to express empathy/emotion like other people because of that. Essentially, Autistic people feel too much.

Peter’s Principle states that companies promote people into management on account of performance rather than ability, resulting in incompetent managers and inefficiency.

7. The "Broken Windows Theory" states that maintaining and monitoring urban areas to prevent small crimes, such as vandalism, helps to create an atmosphere of order and lawfulness - thereby preventing more serious crimes from happening.

8. Julian Jaynes' "bicameral mind theory" suggests that ancient humans were not self-aware and that the right hemisphere communicated with the left via auditory hallucinations. These voices may have been interpreted as "Gods" by early humans.

9. The theory of inoculation has its uses in politics and advertising. Basically, introducing a weak form of an argument can easily be thwarted in order to prepare the audience to disregard a stronger, full-fledged form of the argument from an opposing party.

10. There is a theory that the chronic vocal injuries suffered by today's vocalists are directly caused by the "sing from your diaphragm" methods introduced in the 1800s.

The Aquatic Ape Theory suggests that early hominids lived in the water part of the time and thus explains our hairless bodies (streamlined for swimming), our upright two-legged walking (made wading easier), and our layers of subcutaneous fat, which made us better insulated in water (similar to whale blubber).

12. The “Male Idiot Theory” suggests that men are more likely to engage in risky behavior without any apparent payoff.

13. The greater fool theory states that the price of an object is determined not by its intrinsic value, but rather by irrational beliefs and expectations of market participants.

14. Dunbar’s Number is a theoretical upper limit of the people one can maintain stable relationships with which is suggested to be between 100 and 250. So if a town’s population is below the Dunbar’s number, it is more likely to have harmony and peace than a larger town or city.

15. Hydraulic Empire theory states that civilizations developing in areas with a low abundance of water are fated to develop regulating systems and ultimately despotism and that Europe developed republicanism due to a large excess of it.

Morphogenesis is the math behind the giraffe's spots or a zebra's stripes. This theory coined by Turing found that these apparently random patterns have a mathematic order.

17. Blackstone's Formulation suggests that it is much worse to punish an innocent man than to let a guilty man go free.

18. There is a theory which suggests that cats became domesticated because they adapted to hunting the vermin found around humans in towns and villages. They were tolerated by people and gradually diverged from their wild relatives through natural selection.

19. The Portia Hypothesis is a scientific theory that claims that women with masculine sounding names, do better in male-dominated fields such as law and engineering, than women with feminine names. It is named after a female Shakespeare character who dresses up as a male lawyer and wins a trial.

20. Attachment theory is a psychological, evolutionary, and ethological theory concerning relationships between humans. Its most important tenet is that a young child needs to develop a relationship with at least one primary caregiver for social and emotional development to occur normally.

According to the genetic bottleneck theory, around 75,000 years ago, a supervolcano eruption at Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia resulted in the early human population dropping to 3000-10,000 unique genetic individuals.

22. Piaget’s theory of development suggests that infants in the early stages of development lack object permanence (the understanding that people and things still exist even when you can’t see them). This would explain why peekaboo is so intriguing for them.

23. Nominative determinism as a hypothesis postulates that people are drawn to jobs that match their names.

24. "Queueing Theory," refers to the mathematical study of waiting for lines or queues. It was initially developed by a Danish engineer in 1909. Applications for the theory include telecommunication, traffic engineering, computing, and industrial engineering.

25. One theory with regards to the origins of Amazon rainforest posits that it may be a giant ‘orchard’, the legacy of people who flourished there between 450 B.C. and 950 A.D.