It is sometimes said that there is no such thing/as the so-called scientific method ; there are only the methods used in science. Nevertheless, it seems clear that there is often a special sequence of procedures which is involved in the establishment of the working principles of science. This sequence is as follows: (I) a problem is recognized, and as much information as appears to be relevant is collected; (2) a solution (i.e. a hypothesis) is proposed and the consequences arising out of this solution are deduced; (3) these deduction are tested by experiment, and as a result the hypothesis is accepted, modified or discarded.
As an illustration of this we can consider the discovery of air-pressure. Over two thousand years ago, men discovery a method of raising water from one level to another by means of the vacuum pump. When, however, this machine passed into general use in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, it was discovered that, no matter how perfect the pump was, it was not possible to raise water vertically more than about 35feet. Why? Galileo, amongst others, recognized the problem, but failed to solve it.
The problem was then attacked by Torricelli. Analogizing from the recently-discovered phenomenon of water-pressure (hydrostatic pressure), he postulated that a deep sea of air surrounded the earth; it was, he thought, the pressure of this sea of air which pushed on the surface of the water and caused it to rise in the vacuum tube of a pump. A hypothesis, then, was formed/ The next step was to deduce the consequences of the hypothesis .
Torricelli reasoned that this air pressure would be unable to push a liquid heavier than water as high as 35 feet, and that a column of mercury, for example, which weighed about 14 times more than water would rise to only a fourteenth of the height of water, i.e. approximately2.5 feet. He then tested this deduction by means of the experiment we all know, and found that the mercury column measured the height predicted. The experiment therefore supported the hypothesis.
المادة المعروضة اعلاه هي مدخل الى المحاضرة المرفوعة بواسطة استاذ(ة) المادة . وقد تبدو لك غير متكاملة . حيث يضع استاذ المادة في بعض الاحيان فقط الجزء الاول من المحاضرة من اجل الاطلاع على ما ستقوم بتحميله لاحقا . في نظام التعليم الالكتروني نوفر هذه الخدمة لكي نبقيك على اطلاع حول محتوى الملف الذي ستقوم بتحميله .
|