Physics › Method
Science & the scientific method
Science isn't a pile of facts — it's a procedure for turning a hunch into something you can trust. Observe, guess, test, repeat.
The loop
- Observe — notice something. The bathwater goes cold faster on a windy day.
- Question — why? Does moving air really cool water faster?
- Hypothesis — a testable guess: “water under a fan loses heat faster than still water.”
- Predict — if that's true, then a cup by a fan should drop, say, 5 °C in the time the control drops 2 °C.
- Experiment — two identical cups, same starting temperature, one fan. Measure.
- Analyse — did the numbers match the prediction? By how much? Could chance explain it?
- Conclude & repeat — support it, tweak it, or throw it out. Then someone else tries to reproduce it.
The one rule that makes it science
Why the controls and the repeats
A control is the version where you change nothing — it tells you what would have happened anyway. Variables come in three jobs: the one you change (independent), the one you measure (dependent), and the many you hold fixed (controlled). And you repeat because one measurement could be a fluke; patterns that survive repetition are the ones worth believing.
Hypothesis → theory → law
- A hypothesis is a single testable claim.
- A theory is a big, well-tested explanation that ties many observations together — evolution, relativity, plate tectonics. “Just a theory” gets this exactly backwards: in science a theory is about as solid as it gets.
- A law describes what happens, usually as an equation (F = ma); a theory explains why.
Where the math comes in
Measurement turns “hotter” into a number with units and an uncertainty. Statistics tells you whether a difference is real or just noise. Graphs reveal the shape of a relationship. Every claim in this physics section started as somebody's hypothesis and earned its place by surviving this loop — often for centuries.