Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
A scientific theory is an explanation of an aspect of the natural world and universe that can be (or a fortiori, that has been) repeatedly tested and corroborated in accordance with the scientific method, using accepted protocols of observation, measurement, and evaluation of results.
Quantum theory also provides accurate descriptions for many previously unexplained phenomena, such as black-body radiation and the stability of the orbitals of electrons in atoms. It has also given insight into the workings of many different biological systems , including smell receptors and protein structures . [ 8 ]
The English word theory derives from a technical term in philosophy in Ancient Greek.As an everyday word, theoria, θεωρία, meant "looking at, viewing, beholding", but in more technical contexts it came to refer to contemplative or speculative understandings of natural things, such as those of natural philosophers, as opposed to more practical ways of knowing things, like that of skilled ...
During the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the concept of experimental science, the counterpoint to theory, began with scholars such as Ibn al-Haytham and Francis Bacon. As the Scientific Revolution gathered pace, the concepts of matter , energy, space, time and causality slowly began to acquire the form we know today, and other sciences spun off ...
Scientific theories are distinguished from philosophical theories in that each of their theorems are statements about observable data, whereas a philosophical theory includes theorems which are ideas or principles.
The Big Bang is a physical theory that describes how the universe expanded from an initial state of high density and temperature. [1] The notion of an expanding universe was first scientifically originated by physicist Alexander Friedmann in 1922 with the mathematical derivation of the Friedmann equations.
An example is Galileo's refutation of the theory that celestial bodies are faultless crystal balls. Many considered that it was the optical theory of the telescope that was false, not the theory of celestial bodies. Another example is the theory that neutrinos are emitted in beta decays.
Professor of biology Jerry Coyne sums up biological evolution succinctly: [3]. Life on Earth evolved gradually beginning with one primitive species – perhaps a self-replicating molecule – that lived more than 3.5 billion years ago; it then branched out over time, throwing off many new and diverse species; and the mechanism for most (but not all) of evolutionary change is natural selection.