PHYSICAL SCIENCE

Physical Science

Physical Science

Introduction

Physical Science is an explanation of why things work; a model; It explains the results of many different kinds of experiments, observations and occurences. Predicts results of experiments that have not been done yet. It ties together and explains many different kinds of observations (Edward, 2000). It is an explanation of why things work; a model; It explains the results of many different kinds of experiments, observations and occurences. Predicts results of experiments that have not been done yet. It ties together and explains many different kinds of observations (Maurice & Duhem, 2001).

Discussion

This is one of the commonest experimental situations. Typically, a theoretical model makes certain specific predictions, perhaps novel in character, perhaps novel only in differing from the predictions of competing theories. There is no fixed standard by which the precision of measurement may be judged adequate. As is usual in science, the essential question is whether the conclusion carries conviction, and this is conditioned by the strength of opinion regarding alternative conclusions (Carrier, 2008).

Where strong prejudice obtains, opponents of a heterodox conclusion may delay acceptance indefinitely by insisting on a degree of scrupulosity in experimental procedure that they would unhesitatingly dispense with in other circumstances. For example, few experiments in paranormal phenomena, such as clairvoyance, which have given positive results under apparently stringent conditions, have made converts among scientists. In the strictly physical domain, the search for ether drift provides an interesting study. At the height of acceptance of the hypothesis that light waves are carried by a pervasive ether, the question of whether the motion of the Earth through space dragged the ether with it was tested (1887) by A.A. Michelson and Edward W. Morley of the United States by looking for variations in the velocity of light as it traveled in different directions in the laboratory (Maurice & Duhem, 2001). Their conclusion was that there was a small variation, considerably less than the Earth's velocity in its orbit around the Sun, and that the ether was therefore substantially entrained in the Earth's motion (Edward, 2000). According to Einstein's relativity theory (1905), no variation should have been observed, but during the next 20 years another American investigator, Dayton C. Miller, repeated the experiment many times in different situations and concluded that, at least on a mountaintop, there was a real “ether wind” of about 10 km per second. Although Miller's final presentation was a model ...