Scientific discovery, imagination

Once they have detected patterns, scientists develop hypotheses, possible explanations of the laws—or the observations—in terms of more fundamental concepts. Observation requires careful attention to detail, but the development of a hypothesis requires insight, imagination, and creativity. In 1807, John Dalton interpreted experimental results to propose the hypothesis that matter consists of atoms. Although Dalton could not see individual atoms, he was able to imagine them and formulate his atomic hypothesis. Dalton s hypothesis was a monumental insight that helped others understand the world in a new way. The process of scientific discovery never stops. With luck and application, you may acquire that kind of insight as you read through this text, and one day you may make your own extraordinary hypotheses. 

Solvent extraction deals with the transport of chemical substances from one phase into another one, the chemical kinetics of this process, and the final equilibrium distribution of the substances between the two phases. Such transport and distribution processes are the motors that make life in biological systems possible. Fundamental studies of such solvent extraction processes contribute to the better understanding of all processes in nature. Here, only the lack of imagination stands in the way of important new scientific discoveries. 

For the history of science in the middle ages Roger Bacon is a more interesting personality than Vincent or Albertus, for while the latter were mainly recorders and interpreters of the natural science of this time, Bacon was more passionately interested in the accomplishments of scientific discoveries and aims. He possessed the fervor of a missionary in presenting the claims of science to the attention of his contemporaries, and an imagination which enabled him to look beyond the state of experimental science in his own time to a future of greater possibilities. It is evident that he was a zealous student of several branches of science especially of mathematics, physics (notably of optics), astronomy and the chemistry of his time. 

So far, the importance of this work to education has been stressed. But there are other potential beneficiaries as well. Machine learning has recently turned towards scientific discovery as a source of new problems. Because a workbench is a program that participates in scientific discovery, it should be of some interest to research on discovery. One can even imagine taking protocols of scientists while they use it in order to understand the discoverymaking process better. 

The latter part of the 20th century has seen remarkable advances in science and technology. Accomplishments in biochemistry and medicine, computer technology, and telecommunications have benefited nearly everyone on Earth to one degree or another. Along with these advances that have improved our quality of life, scientific research into the study of the Earth has revealed a planetary system that is more complex and dynamic than anyone would have imagined even 50 years ago. The Earth and the environment have become one of society s greatest concerns, perhaps as the result of these discoveries combined with the quick dissemination of information that is now possible with modem telecommunications. 

In Soddy s 1908 Interpretation of Radium lectures, he laid out the current state of knowledge about radiation and radium, discussing with scientific specificity (but in relatively accessible terms) the history of the last decade of discoveries in radioactivity and current interpretations of them. But the lectures and book concluded with more imaginative, less strictly scientific speculations about the uses of such knowledge and the powers of the energy released by atomic transmutation. Returning to the subject of alchemy, Soddy noted ... 

Subsequently, basic scientific research made great contributions to our nation s economic strength and its security. Some wonderful examples are described in a series of publications called Beyond Discovery The Path from Research to Human Benefit produced by the National Academies. Each brochnre chronicles some discovery in basic science and how it has had applications beyond what anybody could have imagined. Often as a side benefit, many new products emerged from federal government support (for example, communications satellites) and a series of new discoveries was made. 

Accurate and minute measurement seems to the non-scientific imagination a less lofty and dignified work than looking for something new. But nearly all the grandest discoveries of science have been but the rewards of accurate measurement and patient long-continued labor in the minute sifting of numerical results (1). 

We are inclined to assume that it is the slow progress of technological development that impeded scientific advances in studying dreaming. But this is a face-saving sop for those who were so conceptually blinded that they could not imagine the simple experiments that could have led to the brain activation conclusion. As Michel Jouvet shows in his novel Chateau du Reve, most of our vaunted twentieth-century discoveries about sleep could have been made earlier by the most useful scientific instrument of all direct observation. The direct observability of sleep is especially easy to achieve in our infants and children, the very individuals who most dramatically reveal the brain activation of rapid eye movement (REM) in their behaviour. 

Plutonium is a synthetic (artificial) element. It exists naturally only in the smallest imaginable amounts. Plutonium was first prepared artificially by a team of researchers at the University of California at Berkeley (UCB) in 1941. News of this discovery was not released, however, until 1946. This delay was caused by the need for secrecy about scientific developments during World War II (1939-1945). 

The scientific method is not a "cookbook recipe" that, if followed faithfully, will yield new discoveries rather, it is an organized approach to solving scientific problems. Every scientist brings his or her own curiosity, creativity, and imagination to scientific study. But scientific inquiry still involves some of the "cookbook approach."... 

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