Apr
9th
Sat
9th
Richard Feynman on how we would look for a new law (the key to science)
“Now I’m going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works.
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s WRONG. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”
See also:
☞ Richard Feynman - No Ordinary Genius, BBC Horizon documentary (1993)
☞ Richard Feynman on Beauty, Honours and Curiosity
☞ Richard Feynman on the likelihood of Flying Saucers
☞ Richard Feynman on the way nature work: “You don’t like it? Go somewhere else!”
☞ Cargo cult science by Richard Feynman
“Now I’m going to discuss how we would look for a new law. In general, we look for a new law by the following process. First, we guess it (audience laughter), no, don’t laugh, that’s the truth. Then we compute the consequences of the guess, to see what, if this is right, if this law we guess is right, to see what it would imply and then we compare the computation results to nature or we say compare to experiment or experience, compare it directly with observations to see if it works.
If it disagrees with experiment, it’s WRONG. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn’t make any difference how beautiful your guess is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are who made the guess, or what his name is… If it disagrees with experiment, it’s wrong. That’s all there is to it.”
See also:
☞ Richard Feynman - No Ordinary Genius, BBC Horizon documentary (1993)
☞ Richard Feynman on Beauty, Honours and Curiosity
☞ Richard Feynman on the likelihood of Flying Saucers
☞ Richard Feynman on the way nature work: “You don’t like it? Go somewhere else!”
☞ Cargo cult science by Richard Feynman
— Richard Feynman, American physicist, Nobel Laureate in Physics (1918-1988), Cornell University, 1964.
