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Experimentum crucis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
In the
sciences, 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.
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
instancia 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.
Isaac Newton (1687) presented a disproof of Descartes' vortex theory of the motion of the planets.<sup id="cite_ref-0" class="reference">
[1]</sup>
A famous example in the 20th century of an
experimentum crucis was the expedition led by
Arthur Eddington to
Principe Island in
Africa in 1919 to record the positions of stars around the
Sun during a
solar eclipse. The observation of star positions confirmed predictions of
gravitational lensing made by
Albert Einstein in the
general theory of relativity published in 1915. Eddington's observations were considered to be the first solid evidence in favor of Einstein's theory.
In some cases, a proposed theory can account for existing anomalous experimental results for which no other existing theory can furnish an explanation. An example would be the ability of the
quantum hypothesis, proposed by
Max Planck in 1900, to account for the observed
black-body spectrum, an experimental result which the existing
classical Rayleigh-Jeans law could not predict. Such cases are not considered strong enough to fully establish a new theory, however, and in the case of quantum mechanics, it took the confirmation of the theory through
new predictions for the theory to gain full acceptance.
For an opposite view putting into question the decisive value of the experimentum crucis in choosing one hypothesis or theory over its rival see
Pierre Duhem."
Ezt írják a régi fizika követöi!!
Szász Gyulának meg megtítják az experimentum crucisa elvégzését a brémai ejtötoronyban!