[Phys-L] Scientific process

[kowalskil at MAIL.MONTCLAIR.EDU (Ludwik Kowalski)]

On Friday, Aug 26, 2005, Peter Craft wrote:

> 5.2     the nature and practice of science
> c)      apply scientific processes to test the validity of ideas and
> theories
> d)      describe how an idea can gain acceptance in the scientific
> community as
> either theory or law
> g)      identify that the nature of observations made depends upon the
> understanding that the observer brings to the situation
>
> also...
>
> I cannot see how we could cover these outcomes without some appeal to a
> working definition of science.  As a pedagogical issue, What would you
> describe as the scientific processes (5.2)?

c) Nearly any topic, after being introduced, demonstrated and
discussed, can be used to focus on (c) above. The first topic that came
to my mind was siphon. Why was the Aristotelian explanation -- "nature
abhors vacuum" -- not as satisfactory as the explanation in terms of
the net forces due to the dependance of the atmospheric pressure on
elevation? Another topic is the discovery of electromagnetic waves.
Hertz did not discover them by accident, he was trying to validate
ideas developed by Maxwell. Likewise, Pauli formulated the idea of beta
decay neutrinos. This lead to special experiments, about ten years
later.  But some discoveries, such as X-rays, were made accidentally.

d) I am thinking about the evolution of the idea of "heat as a kind of
substance (caloric)" to the idea of "heat as a form of energy." And, by
the way, I do not think that it is wrong to say that mathematical
theories are based on postulates (and derived theorems) while laws of
physics are based on experimental facts (and other laws). But using
these two concepts interchangeably cannot be harmful.

g) I suspect (?) that a biologist Brown, after whom random motion of
particles (suspended in water) was named, first thought of them as tiny
living creatures. One has to be familiar with the kinetic theory of
matter to attribute observations to invisible, thermally agitated,
molecules.

Ludwik Kowalski
Let the perfect not be the enemy of the good.