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An experiment held to decide with certainty between two rival hypotheses about some matter. Famous examples include Eddington's observation of the bending of light rays by the sun during the eclipse of 1919, held to decisively uphold general relativity against Newtonian mechanics, or the observation of weight gain during combustion, held to decide for the theory that combustion is oxidation and against the view that it consists in loss of phlogiston. In practice experiments require a great deal of scene-setting and agreement on what would count as an ad hoc hypothesis before they play such a decisive role, so that rational disagreement on whether one or another rival is really refuted is both possible in theory and often found in practice.
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Crucial experiments
- Achinstein, Peter
A ‘crucial experiment’ allegedly establishes the truth of one of a set of competing theories. Francis Bacon ( 1620 ) held that such experiments are frequent in the empirical sciences and are particularly important for terminating an investigation. These claims were denied by Pierre Duhem ( 1905 ), who maintained that crucial experiments are impossible in the physical sciences because they require a complete enumeration of all possible theories to explain a phenomenon – something that cannot be achieved. Despite Duhem , scientists frequently regard certain experiments as crucial in the sense that the experimental result helps make one theory among a set of competitors very probable and the others very improbable, given what is currently known.
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View blog | read bio, the role of the crucial experiment.
Normal 0 false false false EN-CA JA X-NONE
The idea of a crucial experiment that decisively confirms a model goes back at least to Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) who used the term instantia cruci. Later, the term experimentum crucis was coined by Robert Hooke (1635 – 1703) and used by Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727), in particular with regard to his theory of light. Alternatively, Pierre Duhem (1861 – 1916) strongly disagreed with the possibility of crucial experiments. Somewhat in anticipation of Thomas Kuhn’s (1922–1996) paradigms , Duhem realized that scientific theories or models do not stand alone, but rather come coupled with auxiliary assumptions. Was what Galileo saw through the telescope features of the heavens, or only of his telescope, as some of his detractors claimed? One has to consider the combined heavens-telescope system to decide. When the detector is as complex as the ATLAS detector at CERN the question is even more apropos.
Karl Popper (1902 – 1994) refined the idea of the crucial experiment to one that falsifies a given model. But the Duhem-Quine hypothesis , a variation of Duhem’s idea, makes the point that falsification, at least in its naïve form, falls victim to same holistic argument: we can never test a single model in isolation. So is the idea of a crucial experiment just a will-o-the-wisp that vanishes on more careful evaluation?
We can think of many examples: Sir Arthur Eddington`s measurement of the bending of star light by the sun, the discovery of high-temperature superconductors, the measurement of the three degree microwave background, the Michelson–Morley experiment, and so on. Did none of these play a critical role in the history of science? I would suggest they did, but not in the simple manner suggested by Bacon or Popper.
Consider the Michelson–Morley experiment in 1887. Scientists did not do a Chicken Little impersonation and run around claiming the sky was falling or, in this case, that Newton (Newton`s laws of motion) and Maxwell (electromagnetism) were wrong. Rather, they started trying to understand what the explanation could be. This led to ideas like ether drag (the earth entraining the ether) or Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction (the idea that objects shorten in the direction of motion). The latter idea was developed and expanded upon by Lorentz and Poincaré who developed the math for special relativity. Einstein claimed he was unaware of the Michelson–Morley experiment, but he was certainly aware of Lorentz`s early attempts to understand that experiment. Thus, the Michelson–Morley experiment started a chain of events that inexorably lead to special relativity, not in one easy step, but eventually and inevitably. If special relativity had been proposed thirty years sooner, it would have been treated as a curiosity like the Copernicus model when it was first proposed.
As another example, consider the measurement of the bending of light by the sun. The general theory of relativity and classical mechanics differ by a factor of two. Eddington`s 1919 experiment gave a result closer to general relativity and hence contributed to the early acceptance of general relativity (not that people are not still trying to test it; that is as it should be). A more striking example was the discovery of the three-degree kelvin cosmic microwave background. Before then, there were two models, both with strong support: the steady-state model and the big bang model. While the microwave background was a big boost for the big bang model, the solid state model did not give up without a struggle. There were various attempts to describe the microwave background in the solid state model but they were too little too late. Like the Michelson–Morley experiment, the discovery of the microwave background started a chain reaction that led to the acceptance of one model and the rejection of another.
Perhaps the best way of thinking of crucial experiments is not that they prove (that ugly word) one model better than another, but that they serve as a catalyst. Or perhaps, one can think of a super-cooled fluid that when slightly disturbed, suddenly solidifies . The same phenomenon is seen with people. A group are sitting at lunch and when one gets up to go and they all go, but only if the circumstances are right. Consider the discovery of the J/Ψ particle. The time was right and the background had been prepared so that when it was discovered, the particle physics community solidified around the quark model. Similarly, you can consider Galileo turning his telescope on the heavens as providing the catalyst for the acceptance of the heliocentric model.
Like models, experimental results do not exist in isolation. Rather, they build on each other and are given meaning by the prevailing models. The role of crucial experiments should be seen in relation to that milieu. They do not single handedly overturn or confirm the status quo, but rather, start chains of events that lead to or act as tipping points for the establishment of new paradigms. Thus, crucial experiments do exist but not in the naïve manner envisioned by Bacon, Hooke, or Popper.
Additional posts in this series will appear most Friday afternoons at 3:30 pm Vancouver time. To receive a reminder follow me on Twitter: @musquod.
The idea of a crucial experiment that decisively confirms a model goes back at least to Francis Bacon (1561 – 1626) who used the term instantia cruci. Later, the term experimentum crucis was coined by Robert Hooke (1635 – 1703) and used by Isaac Newton (1642 – 1727), in particular with regard to his theory of light. Alternatively, Pierre Duhem (1861 – 19 16) strongly disagreed with the possibility of crucial experiments. Somewhat in anticipation of Thomas Kuhn’s (1922–1996) paradigms , Duhem realized that scientific theories or models do not stand alone, but rather come coupled with auxiliary assumptions. Was what Galileo saw through the telescope features of the heavens, or only of his telescope, as some of his detractors claimed? One has to consider the combined heavens-telescope system to decide. When the detector is as complex as the ATLAS detector at CERN the question is even more apropos.
Consider the Michelson–Morley experiment [W1] in 1887. Scientists did not do a Chicken Little impersonation and run around claiming the sky was falling or, in this case, that Newton (Newton`s laws of motion) and Maxwell (electromagnetism) were wrong. Rather, they started trying to understand what the explanation could be. This led to ideas like ether drag (the earth entraining the ether) or Lorentz-Fitzgerald contraction (the idea that objects shorten in the direction of motion). The latter idea was developed and expanded upon by Lorentz and Poincaré who developed the math for special relativity. Einstein claimed he was unaware of the Michelson–Morley experiment, but he was certainly aware of Lorentz`s early attempts to understand that experiment. Thus, the Michelson–Morley experiment started a chain of events that inexorably lead to special relativity, not in one easy step, but eventually and inevitably. If special relativity had been proposed thirty years sooner, it would have been treated as a curiosity like the Copernicus model when it was first proposed.
Perhaps the best way of thinking of crucial experiments is not that they prove (that ugly word) one model better than another, but that they serve as a catalyst. Or perhaps, one can think of a super-cooled fluid that when slightly disturbed, suddenly solidifies [W2] . The same phenomenon is seen with people. A group are sitting at lunch and when one gets up to go and they all go, but only if the circumstances are right. Consider the discovery of the J/ Ψ particle. The time was right and the background had been prepared so that when it was discovered, the particle physics community solidified around the quark model. Similarly, you can consider Galileo turning his telescope on the heavens 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Conceptual Change, Crucial Experiments and Auxiliary Hypotheses. A Theoretical Contribution
- Published: 30 July 2010
- Volume 44 , pages 288–298, ( 2010 )
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- Marcelo Leonardo Levinas 1 &
- Mario Carretero 2
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Theories about conceptual change have been generally related to historical and philosophical analysis of science. Yet, there is still much debate on how ideas coming from the history of science and their implications can be applied in this field. Our study intends to investigate the complex structure of conceptual change, by making use of some particularly representative features of the History and Philosophy of science, while considering the structure of so-called crucial experiments and the specific role of implicit hypotheses. Due to their historical importance and logical reasoning aspects, examining these issues may contribute to understand how conceptual change may take place.
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Acknowledgments
This paper was partially written and revised with the support of the Fellowship (2009/2010) to the second author at the D. Rockefeller Center (Harvard University), where David Perkins made some suggestions which we would like also to thank. Also it was funded by Universidad de Buenos Aires—grant UBACyT F086—and CONICET (National Council of Science and Technology, Argentina)—grant PIP 6021—, coordinated by the first author, and also the projects Consolider SEJ 2006-15461 (Spanish Ministry of Education) and PICT-2005-34778 from ANPCYT (Argentina) coordinated by the second author.
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University of Buenos Aires and National Council for Science and Technological Research (CONICET), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Marcelo Leonardo Levinas
Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, Spain and Facultad Latinoamericana de Ciencias Sociales (FLACSO), Buenos Aires, Argentina
Mario Carretero
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Levinas, M.L., Carretero, M. Conceptual Change, Crucial Experiments and Auxiliary Hypotheses. A Theoretical Contribution. Integr. psych. behav. 44 , 288–298 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-010-9139-2
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Published : 30 July 2010
Issue Date : December 2010
DOI : https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-010-9139-2
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What does experimentum crucis mean?
Definitions for experimentum crucis ex·per·i·men·tum cru·cis, this dictionary definitions page includes all the possible meanings, example usage and translations of the word experimentum crucis ., wiktionary rate this definition: 5.0 / 1 vote.
experimentum crucis noun
A "crucial experiment"; a conclusive test to decide between different hypotheses.
Etymology: Modern Latin.
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Experimentum crucis
In science, an experimentum crucis (English: crucial experiment or critical experiment) is an experiment capable of decisively determining whether or not a particular hypothesis or theory is superior to all other hypotheses or theories whose acceptance is currently widespread in the scientific community. In particular, such an experiment must typically be able to produce a result that rules out all other hypotheses or theories if true, thereby demonstrating that under the conditions of the experiment (i.e., under the same external circumstances and for the same "input variables" within the experiment), those hypotheses and theories are proven false but the experimenter's hypothesis is not ruled out. For an opposite view putting into question the decisive value of the experimentum crucis in choosing one hypothesis or theory over its rivals, see Pierre Duhem.
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In the sciences, an experimentum crucis is an experiment capable of decisively determining whether or not a particular hypothesis or theory is superior to all other hypotheses or theories whose acceptance is currently widespread in the scientific community. In particular, such an experiment must typically be able to produce a result that rules out all other hypotheses or theories if true, thereby demonstrating that under the conditions of the experiment, those hypotheses and theories are proven false but the experimenter's hypothesis is not ruled out. Francis Bacon in his Novum Organum first described the concept of a situation in which one theory but not others would hold true, using the name instantia crucis; the phrase experimentum crucis, denoting the deliberate creation of such a situation for the purpose of testing the rival theories, was later coined by Robert Hooke and then famously used by Isaac Newton. The production of such an experiment is considered necessary for a particular hypothesis or theory to be considered an established part of the body of scientific knowledge. It is not unusual in the history of science for theories to be developed fully before producing a critical experiment. A given theory which is in accordance with known experiment but which has not yet produced a critical experiment is typically considered worthy of exploration in order to discover such an experimental test.
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Experimentum crucis. In science, an experimentum crucis ( English: crucial experiment or critical experiment) is an experiment capable of decisively determining whether or not a particular hypothesis or theory is superior to all other hypotheses or theories whose acceptance is currently widespread in the scientific community.
crucial experiment. An experiment held to decide with certainty between two rival hypotheses about some matter. Famous examples include Eddington's observation of the bending of light rays by the sun during the eclipse of 1919, held to decisively uphold general relativity against Newtonian mechanics, or the observation of weight gain during ...
A crucial experiment is successful if it provides evidence that confirms one of the rivals and disconfirms the others. Special cases of successful crucial experiments are those in which the evidence verifies one of the rivals and refutes the others or those in which the evidence confirms one of the rivals and refutes the others.
A 'crucial experiment' allegedly establishes the truth of one of a set of competing theories. Francis Bacon held that such experiments are frequent in the empirical sciences and are particularly important for terminating an investigation.These claims were denied by Pierre Duhem (), who maintained that crucial experiments are impossible in the physical sciences because they require a ...
Here is a classical definition of 'crucial experiment' in Stanley Jevons: Such is the groundwork of similarity in nature, that two different conditions may often give closely similar results. We sometimes find ourselves therefore in possession of two or more hypotheses which both agree with so many experimental facts as to have great ...
Scientific objectivity is a property of various aspects of science. It expresses the idea that scientific claims, methods, results—and scientists themselves—are not, or should not be, influenced by particular perspectives, value judgments, community bias or personal interests, to name a few relevant factors. Objectivity is often considered ...
Role of Crucial Experiments in Science 317 including initial conditions and all sorts of auxiliary and observational theories. This is a very considerable withdrawal, for it allows the imaginative scientist to save his pet theory by suitable lucky alterations in some odd corner of the theoretical maze.
3.2.1 A Crucial Experiment: The Discovery of Parity Nonconservation. Let us consider first an episode in which the relation between theory and experiment was clear and straightforward. This was a "crucial" experiment, one that decided unequivocally between two competing theories, or classes of theory.
Definition. An experimentum crucis or instantia crucis is an experiment or set of observations which is held to be in some sense decisive in confirming or falsifying a theoretical explanation of a phenomenon. It is "crucial" not in the sense of being important but in the sense of bringing us to a signpost at a crossroads (a crux in Latin ...
alleged 'crucial experiment' that is thought to have provided decisive evidence for one among a group of hypotheses. A well-known example is the Hershey-Chase experiment (1952), which showed that viral DNA, not protein, enters a bacterial cell to reprogram it to make virus particles. Another example is the 'PaJaMo' experiment (1958), which
Underdetermination of Scientific Theory. First published Wed Aug 12, 2009; substantive revision Tue Apr 4, 2023. At the heart of the underdetermination of scientific theory by evidence is the simple idea that the evidence available to us at a given time may be insufficient to determine what beliefs we should hold in response to it.
Going back at least to Duhem, there is a tradition of thinking that crucial experiments are impossible in science. I analyse Duhem's arguments and show that they are based on the excessively strong assumption that only deductive reasoning is permissible in experimental science. This opens the possibility that some principle of inductive inference could provide a sufficient reason for ...
The idea of a crucial experiment that decisively confirms a model goes back at least to Francis Bacon (1561 - 1626) who used the term instantia cruci. Later, the term experimentum crucis was coined by Robert Hooke (1635 - 1703) and used by Isaac Newton (1642 - 1727), in particular with regard to his theory of light.Alternatively, Pierre Duhem (1861 - 19 16) strongly disagreed with the ...
Let us codify this understanding in the following definition Discussions 63 (D6) An experiment whose results are formulated by the proposition a is a `crucial experiment' if there are propositions h, a and f such that R(h & amf), R-(e &f), Re, R -f and R-(h & a). But are `crucial experiments' really crucial in any important sense?
alleged 'crucial experiment' that is thought to have provided decisive evidence for one among a group of hypotheses. A well-known example is the Hershey-Chase experiment
Psychology Definition of CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT: a trial and error procedure built in a way that the outcome will conclude which of the two converse theories has
Natural light of experience is held by empiricists to be the reliable source of human knowledge. Inductive logic has been a leading tool of empirical experiments in justifying and confirming scientific theories with evidence. Science cannot reach where it has reached without inductive logic. Inductive logic has, therefore, played an important ...
The crucial experiment's legitimacy depends on the understanding of data and the theoretical context where the experience is interpreted ... However, due to its definition, inertia is unobservable because it would require an absolutely isolated body and the absence of any reference system to measure its movement without interference.
Definition of experimentum crucis in the Definitions.net dictionary. Meaning of experimentum crucis. What does experimentum crucis mean? ... A "crucial experiment"; a conclusive test to decide between different hypotheses. Etymology: Modern Latin. Wikipedia Rate this definition: 0.0 / 0 votes. Experimentum crucis.
Going back at least to Duhem, there is a tradition of thinking that crucial experiments are impossible in science. I analyse Duhem's arguments and show that they are based on the excessively strong assumption that only deductive reasoning is permissible in experimental science. This opens the possibility that some principle of inductive inference could provide a sufficient reason for ...
Pierre Duhem (1861-1916) was a French physicist and historian and philosopher of science. As a physicist, he championed "energetics," holding generalized thermodynamics as foundational for physical theory, that is, thinking that all of chemistry and physics, including mechanics, electricity, and magnetism, should be derivable from thermodynamic first principles.
On the account that I shall give, crucial experiments do not refute the alternatives. Instead, they positively select one of the hypotheses as best supported by the evidence. Therefore, Duhem's first problem in its classic form seems to be irrelevant. Even so, it is clearly the case that a crucial experiment relies on auxiliary assumptions.
CRUCIAL EXPERIMENT: "Crucial experiments are the simplest by nature and generally the first introduced in elementary or junior high science classes." x Twitter Facebook LinkedIn Reddit Messenger Telegram WhatsApp Email