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Nature "is". Science is an attempt to explain why Nature is the way it is. Collect data, make a prediction, test it, revise the prediction, rinse, repeat. Gr
by jleyank 11y ago
Nature "is".
Science is an attempt to explain why Nature is the way it is. Collect data, make a prediction, test it, revise the prediction, rinse, repeat. Granted, there are belief systems aplenty in scientific work (string theory?) but as Kuhn has written, sometimes Nature laughs and forces a change.
And Asimov's "level of error" discussion is valid. Newtonian physics, while "wrong" is perfectly useful when aiming spacecraft away from the sun. Box: "All models are wrong. Some models are useful". And Feynman's talked about this as well.
- ThrustVectoring 11y ago"The map is not the territory" is a concise way to phrase the idea you're pointing at.
- andyidsinga 11y agoI loved loved loved the part about the curvature per mile. Last weekend I was cutting the top of a door on a diagonal that had to match the sloped roof-line of a new doorway I'm putting in on my second floor. When I calculated the slope, I incorrectly rounded up to too few decimal points ..such that over the length of the door (~ 31 inches) the error caused the slope to be off about 1/2 inch -- which, had I cut the door, would have looked horrible. This problem really perplexed me (because I'm an idiot!) ...until I saw the answer staring me right in the face on my calculator - the many values to the right of the decimal. Of course, leaving those there fixed the issue, and I got a nice accurate slope over the width of the door :)