Recently, while I was browsing through books in Milwood library in my neighborhood, I found an interesting book which talked about what really goes behind a scientific discovery, creation of new theories, laws, axioms, hypothesis etc.
I for long had an assumption or misconception that scientists and researchers who come out with new astonishing discoveries and inventions every year must really be ultra genius or other-worldly smart ass. But after reading that book, it makes me believe that thinking like a scientist does not require incredibly sophisticated logic.
It states that, just like any layman, scientists go through series of simple steps before making any new findings.
1. Observation: - It all starts when we see, hear, feel or taste a specific pattern in the events or strange coincidence.
For example: - Lets say a dog starts barking in particular way at certain times. We tend to observe what makes it bark and find that it barks usually when it finds any other dogs or strangers around the house.
2. Hypothesis: After making those observations, we make a generalized basic phenomenon with dog barking. It barks when it senses a threat to its territory.
The threat could be either other dogs or other animal or fire, wind etc.
3. Prediction: In the next step, we tend to substantiate our hypothesis or add more credibility to our hypothesis by forecasting future occurrence of weather change or stranger visits consistent with hypothesis.
4. Experiment: In the final step, we carry out test to see if the predicted event occurs i.e. we physically observe if there are any intruders in its territory or change in weather after it started barking. Depending upon the outcome of experiment, we accept or reject the hypothesis.
Many of the science’s greatest ideas and discoveries were made by following the same reasoning. When Galileo was walking on the beach, he noticed that sand looks continuous from distance but when looked closely its actually collection of fine grained particles. Similarly, he thought water and air may also not be continuous and must be made up of much smaller molecules. This observation gave rise to discovery of Atoms (basic building blocks of all matter).
When Geologists observed that Latin America and Africa fit perfectly well with each other like a jig saw puzzle, it gave rise to Tectonic plate’s model of earth.
Newton discovered the law of gravity when he observed mango falling from the tree.
Alchemedis discovered the law of buoyancy while taking shower in his bath tub.
Alexander Fleming while working on flu research noticed something blue and green growing in one of his Petri dishes. Further investigation revealed that this mold soon to be known as penicillin had killed the other bacteria in the dish.
But there is a serious question which you and I have to think about……have we wondered what is the problem with this kind of inductive reasoning…… which uses set of observations as basis to support hypothesis but not to guarantee it ????
All the hypothesis is based on observations only....Suppose we find a snake which is venomous.. few days later we find another one which is also venomous...so it goes on and we would have found 100 different kinds of venomous snakes then we form a hypothesis that all snakes are venomous. This hypothesis stays on as long as someone dares to check if any newly found snake is really venomous.
Its something like Geocentric belief…..i.e everyone observed that sun rises in east and sets in west, so they came to conclusion that Earth is the center of universe and all other planets and sun revolve around the earth….This belief stood for many many ages only to be disproved by Galileo’s one simple experiment with his telescope.
We saw Maurice Greene winning all running races in 90’s, so we concluded Maurice Greene is the fastest man on earth. One day Usain Bolt walks in and shatters all records held by Greene and disproves the fastest man theory.
Thus every scientific law is tentative by its very nature.... each successful experiment is only partial support of hypothesis...it always stand on edge of error.
This concept is very well pictured in the movie 'The Beautiful Mind' where the scientist will go on to disprove some of very basic or fundamental laws of physics and eventually wins a Nobel prize. So funda is never be too attached to a theory...rather be open to surprises....
Quote to Ponder over :-
No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right....A single experiment can prove me wrong -Albert Einstein
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