SCIE 2010U Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Scientific Modelling, Scientific Method, Richard Feynman
1. Science of Pop Culture
Science and the Scientific Method
What Science Is
Science
1. Defining science can be surprisingly difficult.
2. Science from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge."
3. But not all knowledge comes from science.
4. Is a body of knowledge.
5. Is an ongoing human activity.
6. Is a method.
1. Way that we do stuff that other disciplines and non-disciplines don’t do
How can we distinguish science from non-science?
The idealized scientific method
7. Based on proposing and testing hypotheses
8. hypothesis = educated guess
But science rarely proceeds in this idealized way.
For example
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9. Sometimes we start by "just looking" then coming up with possible explanations.
10. Sometimes we follow our intuition rather than a particular line of evidence.
Hallmarks of Science
Modern science seeks explanations for observed phenomena that rely solely on
natural causes.
Science progresses through the creation and testing of models of nature that explain
the observations as simply as possible.
A scientific model must make testable predictions about natural phenomena that
would force us to revise or abandon the model if the predictions do not agree with
observations.
Scientific Measurements
Measurements are a hallmark of good science.
"I often say that when you can measure something and express it in numbers, you know
something about it. When you cannot measure it, when you cannot express it in numbers, your
knowledge is of a meager and unsatisfactory kind. It may be the beginning of knowledge, but
you have scarcely in your thoughts advanced to the stage of science, whatever it may be."
Measurements
11. Needed to advance all sciences
12. Better more precise methods of measurements is a major factor in the progress of
science
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