Science of Science

As Chintu was enjoying the sweetness of Jalebi at a family festival, his father suddenly introduced him to an old guy who is supposed to be his father’s uncle. Without any formalities, Mr. Old guy started his barrage of questions.

Old Guy: What are you studying these days?

Chintu: 12th Science

Old Guy: haha, Ok define science?

That was KO for Chintu. He understood concepts in science and learned how to apply them to solve questions, but he never thought of defining Science.

As a supportive audience of our protagonist Chintu’s life, let's try to help him.

Before we take to attempt to define Science (or anything in general), it is wise to define a definition first, i.e., understand what a good definition is. A good definition is a statement with a set of characteristics/properties/information that uniquely identifies the thing that it is trying to define. Let's say you want to define what is fire. If you say it is hot, bright, and emits light, it doesn't uniquely tell about fire, for I can have an old electric bulb with exactly these properties. Hence if I send this definition to an alien race in a description of how to make biryani, there is a high probability that they will end up putting utensils on the light bulb (if they have invented that). A good definition of fire will involve statements that it is an exothermic self-sustained chemical reaction that produces light and heat. The point is, you have to include a set of characteristics that uniquely identify the phenomena.

Let’s think of a scenario before we define science. Anyway, humanity waited for thousands of years before stumbling upon science, then why can’t we spare a few more lines before defining it. Imagine you are walking in a forest as an early human (So no fancy smartwatch or internet, you are wearing an animal skin from your last dinner left out). Suddenly you see an oval-shaped earthen pot in front of you. Surprisingly it’s moving a little. Being the predecessor of smart Chintu, you naturally get curious. From the observation (Data) that it is moving, you predict (hypothesize), ‘there are little worms underneath the pot which are making it move.’ So, to confirm your prediction (Hypothesis), you lift the pot up to see underneath (Experimentation). As you lift, you hear a squeaking sound. But there are no worms underneath. So, your hypothesis was wrong. But you got additional observation in the form of a squeaking sound. You now hypothesize that there is a squirrel inside this pot that is moving and making it move and producing a squeaking sound. Based on this hypothesis you make a prediction that if we heat the pot, squeaking will increase. You perform the experiment and squeaking increases. So, now your hypothesis becomes a theory as its prediction gave a positive result. Later your friend comes and uses your hypothesis to predict that if we keep the pot isolated for 10 days, the pot will stop making sounds and the squirrel will die.

This is how science works. We observe and collect data, then based on this we make a hypothesis. Using this hypothesis we design an experiment and predict an outcome. We test the prediction and if the result of the experiment matches the prediction of the hypothesis we make another experiment and so on until the prediction goes wrong. Until then, the hypothesis is called a Theory.

If the result of the experiment doesn’t match the prediction of the hypothesis, then you create another hypothesis and check again.

Thus science is a systematic study that involves observation, formulation of a hypothesis, experimentation, and evaluation of results to arrive at a theory. That is verification of the fact using experimentation.

So, what's the use of such a method? Does it help? Let me tell you about a time when everyone on earth thought if you drop a heavy object (say a rock) and a light object (say a piece of wood) from the same height simultaneously, then the heavy object will fall faster. For thousands of years of human civilization people thought of this but no one tried to drop two things to see for themselves. Then came a man who did this and found that both, the heavy and the light fell at the same time. That is the power of experimentation. That person was known to his fellow humans as Galileo Galilei. (Although Galileo had arrived at this conclusion using logical reasoning first and then he performed the experiment to check his prediction. I have put his reasoning at the bottom of this article in case you are curious.)

The power of a theory lies in its ability to predict the unknown. After the great Newton formulated his equations for gravitation, one guy named Urbain Le Verrier calculated the orbit of the then-known planets. To his surprise, calculated paths were slightly different from the observed data. He had faith in the equations, so he predicted the existence of a new planet to make the equations give results that fit the observations. Based on this he wrote a letter to the observatory to point their telescope in a certain direction of the sky to see a new planet, and guess what, when they did they discovered Neptune. Human, a small living being on a tiny planet in this vast universe, use a systematic technique that enables them to not only understand but also predict unseen things in this universe. Science truly sets us free and makes us more than our limits in space and time.

I guess we have helped Chintu enough for today. If we do more then his small brain might give up. 

Appendix

Galileo's Genius Logic

At his time it was thought that heavier object falls faster compared to lighter objects. To give a qualitative figure, let's say 'M' is the heavier object and 'm' is the lighter object. So if we make M and m fall from the same height M hits the ground first. Now if we attach M and m with a string or rod of negligible mass, then M which is falling faster will pull the slowly falling m and hence this combined system should take less time to reach the ground than m alone, and more time compared to taken by M. That means time taken by this combined system will take time intermediate to the time taken by m and M. But our original assumption was heavier mass falls faster. Now the mass of the combined system in the above argument is m+M, and as this is more than M, it should take less time than M. Now this is a contradiction to our earlier result. So that means heavier object falls faster is wrong as it produces logical inconsistency. So does 'the lighter object falls faster' correct? Again if we do a similar reasoning as earlier we will arrive at the same logical inconsistency. That means none falls faster than others is the only correct way and hence all the objects regardless of their mass should take same time to hit the ground if dropped from the same height.

With this reasoning, Galileo could arrive at an important result that for centuries people had understood wrong and with this reasoning, the method of science was born. The power of self-consistent reasoning shouldn't skip our attention as that alone has the power to filter out truth from the universe.