Scientific method

Scientific methods or processes are considered fundamental to the scientific investigation and acquisition of new knowledge based upon physical evidence by scientific communities. Scientists use observations and reasoning to develop technologies and propose explanations for natural phenomena in the form of hypotheses. Predictions from these hypotheses are tested by experiment and further technologies developed. Any hypothesis which is cogent enough to make predictions can then be tested reproducibly in this way. Once it has been established that a hypothesis is sound (by use of the above methods), it becomes a theory. Sometimes scientific development takes place differently with a theory first being developed gaining support on the basis of its logic and principles. For example the theory of general relativity was invented, gained supporters, and only later confirmed by experiment.

Historical references to scientific method

• W. Stanley Jevons, 1874, 1877. The Principles of Science, 786pp., index. Reprinted by Dover, 1958, with a forward by Ernst Nagel.
• Francis Bacon 1620. Novum Organum (The New Organon).
• Werner Heisenberg. Physics and Beyond: Encounters and Conversations translated by A. J. Pomerans (Harper & Row, New York, 1971), pp. 63?64.

Bacon's original work described many of the accepted principles, underscoring the importance of

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Theory, empirical results, data gathering, experiment, and independent corroboration.

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