El Problema de la Creación de Hipótesis en el Método Científico-Experimental Hipotético-Deductivo

Historia y Filosofía de la Ciencia

Antonio Núñez, ULPGC

Newton, prefacio PNPM Rational Mechanics will be the science of

motions resulting from any forces whatsoever, and of the forces required to produce any motions, accurately proposed and demonstrated.

And therefore we offer this work as mathematical principles of philosophy. For all the difficulty of philosophy seems to consist in this—from the phenomena of motions to investigate the forces of Nature, and then from these forces to demonstrate the other phenomena ...

Las 4 reglas de Newton Rule 1: We are to admit no more causes of natural things than

such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances.

Rule 2: Therefore to the same natural effects we must, as far as possible, assign the same causes.

Rule 3: The qualities of bodies, which admit neither intensification nor remission of degrees, and which are found to belong to all bodies within the reach of our experiments, are to be esteemed the universal qualities of all bodies whatsoever.

Rule 4: In experimental philosophy we are to look upon propositions inferred by general induction from phenomena as accurately or very nearly true, not withstanding any contrary hypothesis that may be imagined, till such time as other phenomena occur, by which they may either be made more accurate, or liable to exceptions.

Newton The General Scholium is a concluding essay added to the

second edition, 1713 (and amended in the third edition, 1726).

Here Newton used what became his famous expression 'Hypotheses non fingo', "I frame no hypotheses“, in response to criticisms of the first edition of the 'Principia'. ('Fingo' is sometimes nowadays translated 'feign' rather than the traditional ‘frame’)

Newton firmly rejected such criticisms and wrote that it was enough that the phenomena implied gravitational attraction, as they did; but the phenomena did not so far indicate the cause of this gravity, and it was both unnecessary and improper to frame hypotheses of things not implied by the phenomena: such hypotheses "have no place in experimental philosophy", in contrast to the proper way in which "particular propositions are inferred from the phenomena and afterwards rendered general by induction

Newton Hactenus phænomena cælorum & maris nostri per vim

gravitatis exposui, sed causam gravitatis nonum assignavi... Rationem vero harum gravitatis proprietatum ex phænomenis

nondum potui deducere, & hypotheses non fingo. Quicquid enim ex phænomenis non deducitur, hypothesis

vocanda est; & hypotheses seu metaphysicæ, seu physicæ, seu qualitatum occultarum, seu mechanicæ, in philosophia experimentali locum non habent.

Darwin When on board H.M.S. Beagle, as naturalist, I was much struck with certain

facts in the distribution of the inhabitants of South America, and in the geological relations of the present to the past inhabitants of that continent. These facts seemed to me to throw some light on the origin of species — that mystery of mysteries, as it has been called by one of our greatest philosophers. On my return home, it occurred to me, in 1837, that something might perhaps be made out on this question by patiently accumulating and reflecting on all sorts of facts which could possibly have any bearing on it. After five years' work I allowed myself to speculate on the subject, and drew up some short notes; these I enlarged in 1844 into a sketch of the conclusions, which then seemed to me probable: from that period to the present day I have steadily pursued the same object. I hope that I may be excused for entering on these personal details, as I give them to show that I have not been hasty in coming to a decision

Einstein These thoughts did not come in any verbal formulation. I

rarely think in words at all. A thought comes, and I may try to express it in words afterward. Most of the fundamental ideas of science are essentially simple, and may, as a rule, be expressed in a language comprehensible to everyone.

All these constructions and the laws connecting them can be arrived at by the principle of looking for the mathematically simplest concepts and the link between them.

The human mind has first to construct forms, independently, before we can find them in things

Dirac A good deal of my research in physics has consisted in not setting

out to solve some particular problem, but simply examining mathematical equations of a kind that physicists use and trying to fit them together in an interesting way, regardless of any application that the work may have. It is simply a search for pretty mathematics. It may turn out later to have an application. Then one has good luck. At age 78.

Paul A. M. Dirac

International Journal of Theoretical Physics (1982), 21, 603. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 110

Dirac

A great deal of my work is just playing with equations and seeing what they give.

Paul A. M. Dirac

Quoted in Frank Wilczek, ',The Dirac Equation'. Proceedings of the Dirac Centennial Symposium (2003), 45

Dirac There are, at present, fundamental problems in theoretical physics … the

solution of which … will presumably require a more drastic revision of our fundamental concepts than any that have gone before. Quite likely, these changes will be so great that it will be beyond the power of human intelligence to get the necessary new ideas by direct attempts to formulate the experimental data in mathematical terms. The theoretical worker in the future will, therefore, have to proceed in a more direct way. The most powerful method of advance that can be suggested at present is to employ all the resources of pure mathematics in attempts to perfect and generalize the mathematical formalism that forms the existing basis of theoretical physics, and after each success in this direction, to try to interpret the new mathematical features in terms of physical entities.At age 28.

Paul A. M. Dirac

Proceedings of the Royal Society (1931), A133, 60. In A. Pais, 'Playing With Equations, the Dirac Way'. Behram N. Kursunoglu (Ed.) and Eugene Paul Wigner (Ed.), Paul Adrien Maurice Dirac: Reminiscences about a Great Physicist (1990), 109

Feynman In general we look for a new law by the following

process. First we guess it. Then we compute the consequences of the guess to see what would be implied if this law that we guessed is right. Then we compare the result of the computation to nature, with experiment or experience, compare it directly with observation, to see if it works. If it disagrees with experiment it is wrong. In that simple statement is the key to science. It does not make any difference how beautiful your guess is. It does not make any difference how smart you are, who made the guess, or what his name is – if it disagrees with experiment it is wrong.

Hawking In the classical theory of gravity, either the universe has

existed for an infinite time, or else it had a beginning at a singularity at some finite time in the past. In the quantum theory of gravity, a third possibility arises. Because one is using Euclidean space-times, in which the time direction is on the same footing as directions in space, it is possible for space-time to be finite in extent and yet to have no singularities that formed a boundary or edge

I’d like to emphasize that this idea that time and space should be finite “without boundary” is just a proposal: it cannot be deduced from some other principle. Like any other scientific theory, it may initially be put forward for aesthetic or metaphysical reasons, but the real test is whether it makes predictions that agree with observation. This, how-ever, is difficult to determine in the case of quantum gravity, for several reasons..

Stravinsky “Sí, es cuestión de inspiración, pero

cuando llegue la inspiración es mejor que te pille trabajando”.

Conclusión

A modo de comentario sobre la creación de hipótesis en el método científico experimental hipotético-deductivo: “inducción vs deducción?: la abducción o formación de hipótesis (inferencia captada por abstracción intuitiva) en Aristóteles o en Peirce”

El Problema de la Creación de Hipótesis en el Método Científico-Experimental Hipotético-Deductivo

Historia y Filosofía de la Ciencia

Antonio Núñez, ULPGC