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> Isn't this the definition of how science should work. 1) Formulate an hypothesis, 2) design an experiment to prove it 3) and then run it rigorously and accept
by datenwolf 11y ago
> Isn't this the definition of how science should work. 1) Formulate an hypothesis, 2) design an experiment to prove it 3) and then run it rigorously and accept whatever is the result.
No. The critical difference lies in steps 2 and 3. You can never prove something in science, because you'll never get all the corner cases. What you're really after is designing an experiment that is able to falsify (=disprove) your hypothesis and run that. Because if you find one single instance that contradicts the original hypothesis, you know that your hypothesis in its current form is wrong, because it can't be applied universally.
- pedrocr 11y agoYou're mixing up concepts. You want an experiment that can falsify the hypothesis, because if it can't it's worthless. That doesn't mean you don't run the experiment to give evidence to the hypothesis. So in the LHC case the hypothesis is "the Higgs exists and it's energy is X". Then they run the experiment and get evidence that says "there is a very high probability that there is a particle with energy X" and so their initial hypothesis is considered proven. If you don't like the word proven, then they conclude it's extremely unlikely to be false.