Here's another example.
After Newton proposed his law of gravity and laws of motion, it became possible to look at deviations from the orbits described by Kepler and to attribute these deviations to the gravitational influence of other planets. Well and good.
Well, the planet Uranus was discovered by mistake: Herschel was looking at the sky with his telescope and saw something that moved from night to night. It also showed a small disk. Eventually it was recognized to be a planet.
Now, the new Newtonian physics was immediately applied to this new planet. Things looked good for a while, then the observations and the predictions started going out of sync. There were at least a couple of options: 1) the Newtonian law of gravity didn't apply that far from the sun, or 2) there was another planet out there modifying the orbit of Uranus. Looking at the second possibility, it was possible to use the observations to *predict* where in the sky the new planet should be found. And guess what? When people looked, it was found! It is the planet Neptune.
Now, this is a perfect example of how science is done. Observations are collected. Differences with known conditions are discovered. A hypothesis is formulated. New observations are made, in this case verify hypothesis. This *is* the scientific method.
And, by the way, the whole thing would be impossible with a flat Earth.
After Newton proposed his law of gravity and laws of motion, it became possible to look at deviations from the orbits described by Kepler and to attribute these deviations to the gravitational influence of other planets. Well and good.
Well, the planet Uranus was discovered by mistake: Herschel was looking at the sky with his telescope and saw something that moved from night to night. It also showed a small disk. Eventually it was recognized to be a planet.
Now, the new Newtonian physics was immediately applied to this new planet. Things looked good for a while, then the observations and the predictions started going out of sync. There were at least a couple of options: 1) the Newtonian law of gravity didn't apply that far from the sun, or 2) there was another planet out there modifying the orbit of Uranus. Looking at the second possibility, it was possible to use the observations to *predict* where in the sky the new planet should be found. And guess what? When people looked, it was found! It is the planet Neptune.
Now, this is a perfect example of how science is done. Observations are collected. Differences with known conditions are discovered. A hypothesis is formulated. New observations are made, in this case verify hypothesis. This *is* the scientific method.
And, by the way, the whole thing would be impossible with a flat Earth.
