the.com/hypothesis
a guess wearing a lab coat, daring the universe to prove it wrong
means A proposed explanation for something, put forward on limited evidence so it can be tested and either supported or shot down.
from From Greek hypothesis, literally 'a placing under' or 'foundation' — from hypo- ('under') plus thesis ('a placing, a proposition'). The idea is of something set down underneath an argument as its base. It passed through Late Latin and into English around the late 1500s, first meaning a supposition laid down as groundwork, later narrowing to the scientist's testable proposition.
- can't prove
- Science only fails to disprove, never confirms forever
- null twin
- Every hypothesis has a boring rival assuming nothing happens
- falsifiable
- Untestable claims aren't hypotheses, just opinions in disguise
- word origin
- Greek for placing something underneath as foundation
continental drift — alfred wegener's 1912 theory that continents move across earth's surface, confirmed by plate tectonics in the 1960s
germ theory of disease — louis pasteur and robert koch's 1870s-80s hypothesis that microorganisms cause infectious diseases, revolutionizing medicine
higgs boson existence — peter higgs' 1964 prediction of a particle giving mass to other particles, confirmed at cern in 2012