seabala
6 HN recommenders · recommended in 13 months, 2012–2024
9:59 · 2.4M views · Feb 18, 2011
A short clip of Richard Feynman explaining the scientific method: guess, compute consequences, compare to experiment, and why vague theories like astrology cannot be proven wrong.
Widely recommended as one of the clearest, funniest short explanations of what makes something science.
15 comments from Hacker News
Yes! Nature is the authority. Our scientific method allows us to pose any question and it allows us to gain understanding when said questions are testable and repeatable. Notably: we never get to know anything, sadly But, we do understand monkey see, monkey do style: do A get B Observing nature is key, but not the only key. Observation coupled with mathematics allows us to process observation analytically, and all of that allows us to... Guess and test! Richard Feynman taught this at Cornell, and it remains one of the best explanations of the scientific method around because it is clear, funny and short, to the point: this video And just another thing to add here, and that is science is not a belief system, nor does it require belief due to the method requiring we question everything, including the method! Notably, Feynman talks about things being likely or unlikely as a root driver for our guesses, which again depend on observation, that stumbling into that which can enlighten, math needed to predict, and experiment to test. Theory is not proof either. It is simply the most predictive understanding we have! Old theory still works as well as it ever did, and that build down to how predictive it is. Is a theory proven right? Nope, we can only say we have yet to prove it wrong. Example: Einstein Theory of General Relativity has been very difficult to prove wrong and it has been very predictive even when we have not expected it to be! Is Einstein right? Who knows? What we can say i
Feynman's lectures on the character of physical law should be something everyone sees in school. In general we look for a new law by the following process: first we guess it, then we compute the consequences of the guess... and then we compare those computation results to experiment. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It doesn't make a difference how beautiful your guess is. It doesn't make a difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is. If it disagrees with experiment its wrong, that's all there is to it. Notice however that we never prove it right... In the future there could be a wider range of experiments, or you could compute a wider range of consequences, and you may discover then that the thing is wrong. That's why laws like Newton's laws for the motions of planets last such a long time... It took several hundred years before the slight error in the motion of Mercury was developed. this video
Science is about basic understanding. Monkey see, monkey do. Input A yields outcome B. We get that understanding this way: this video I love that whole series of lectures. They are his Cornell introduction to physics lectures and are a gold mine of basic scientific type thinking. So far, science has not increased our knowledge of truth. That's damn tough to come by. What it has done is very significantly expanded our understanding of the world. Our theories are far more predictive in far more contexts than ever! But, that is it! Monkey see, monkey do. Engineering is all about applying that understanding to solve problems in robust, efficient, safe ways.
this video < have an explanation by Feynman on the scientific method. (Feynman is a great teacher!) The whole video is pretty good, and the specific point starting with "You cannot prove a vague theory wrong" is explained around 5:10.
"Science" has now many definitions. My personal understanding of "science" is this: this video