• Question: what is science ?

    Asked by kyralrtk to Cristina, Gemma, Loan, Michael, Praveen on 8 Nov 2015.
    • Photo: Cristina Villa del Campo

      Cristina Villa del Campo answered on 8 Nov 2015:

      Hi! Thanks for your question!

      That is an interesting one. Science started basically when people wanted to understand the world around them and began asking questions, it was pretty much philosophy. We had questions and we came up with answers to explain what we could see and feel. Nowadays science is also based on asking questions about our world, but because we know more now we think about what the answer can be (we come up with an hypothesis) and think of ways to test if it’s true, and now we have many techniques to do this! We collect data by observing and then see if our hypothesis holds true. If it does, we can have a theory and if it doesn’t we need to come up with a new hypothesis and see if that can be the answer. And that is how the scientific method works and how new knowledge is built.

    • Photo: Loan Nguyen

      Loan Nguyen answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      To me, science is the stady of how things work.
      In Biology, we study the way different organisms work in health and disease, and in reproduction as well their interaction with their living environment.

      In Chemistry we study the way different chemicals react together to make new chemicals and materials. We study what makes them strong and what makes them weak. We learn that each chemical has a special characteristic and how to take advantage of that.

      In Physics we learn about how things move and interact with each other. We learn about the impact of speed on objects and gravity on motion. A good understanding of physics allow room great engineering boundless inventions and possibilities.

      Hope that anwers your question. Keep on asking, it is the best way to learn.

      Loan

    • Photo: Michael Schneider

      Michael Schneider answered on 9 Nov 2015:

      Science is a way of understanding the world around us, our bodies, and ourselves, based on closely observing things (sometimes, with new instruments allowing us to see things that could not have been detected earlier), speculating about the connections (“hypotheses”), and testing if the hypotheses are true, through experiments that see if the predicted results actually occur. Most great breakthroughs involve at least two of these components, but ultimately their truth requires all three. Only now in the 21st century do we have the tools to test some of Einstein’s predictions. He didn’t have a Large Hadron Collider, whereas Galileo only needed to drop balls from a tower or roll them down a ramp….

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