Abstract
Defining science is not as simple as one might think. In retrospect this is not surprising; it is difficult to define many things. We all know happiness or love or evil when we see it, but defining these concepts is difficult indeed. Even a physical entity like a duck is hard to define. The dictionary definition, “A waterbird with a broad blunt bill, short legs, webbed feet, and a waddling gait” seems unsatisfactory. This description of a few duck-like attributes does not seem to capture the essence of a duck.
“[Natural] philosophy is written in this grand book – I mean the universe – which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth.”
— Galileo Galilei, The Assayer
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Notes
- 1.
Of course one assumes that everything else is kept equal.
- 2.
Consider the following. Aristotle: “We may assume the superiority, all things being equal, of the demonstration which derives from fewer postulates or hypotheses.” Ptolemy: “We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible.” Duns Scotus: “Plurality is not to be posited without necessity”. Isaac Newton: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances”. Einstein: “Everything should be kept as simple as possible, but no simpler.”
- 3.
Brownian motion is the random motion of small particles in a fluid.
- 4.
Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac (1902–1984) was a British theoretical physicist who made fundamental contributions to the early development of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory.
- 5.
Anthropomorphism is the attribution of human characteristics to nonhuman entities. In this case the very human notions of simplicity or beauty are being applied to nature.
- 6.
Most laws are known to be approximations to nature. For example Ohm’s law posits a simple relationship between voltage, current, and resistance. However this breaks down in all materials at sufficiently high voltage. Diodes, for example, rely on non-ohmic behavior to be useful.
- 7.
This was not always the case. Although early attempts at mathematicization exist, it was only with the advent of the Scientific Revolution that this became an accepted standard.
- 8.
That is to say, it is not necessary when computing a typical orbit. If enormous accuracy is desired then more detailed knowledge of the sun will be required.
- 9.
In François Arago’s apt phrase, Le Verrier had discovered a planet “with the point of his pen”.
- 10.
Many molecules found in living organism display a handedness – think of a screw that goes clockwise or counterclockwise. For some reason all chiral biomolecules are left-handed.
- 11.
I.e., faster than the speed of light.
- 12.
An amphiphile is a chemical compound that has a part that is attracted to water and another part that is attracted to fats. Soap is an amphiphile.
- 13.
We will not venture to solve the problem here.
- 14.
There is good reason to believe that Galileo did not actually conduct this experiment.
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Swanson, E.S. (2016). What Is Science?. In: Science and Society. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21987-5_1
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