This is odd but it actually in my thinking makes sense.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jXssAuutmQw&feature=channel_video_title

You might think. wait what? This is just some individuals fantasized concept of our universe. but when you look on it. How much do we really know? Any way of testing this persons theory out with the BOINC system?

It really is weird but it just makes sense.

Hello Nanakisan,

In fact, your question does raise important questions about how science works--assuming there is one standard "scientific process" that we can easily describe, which I do not believe is the case. For a particular hypothesis to qualify as scientific, it must achieve a couple of complementary tasks. First, It has to explain what we already know. Second it has to predict something that we do not know and which we could verify using experimental or observational tests. If it achieves the first task and fails at the second then it is a mere convention, not a scientific hypothesis. It is simply a different way of talking about something that does not meet the rigorous requirements of a scientific hypothesis.

Let me give you an example to explain what I mean. We have a justifiably strong faith in the principle of conservation of energy. Let's say that tomorrow we encounter circumstances under which it is violated--that is we come across a physical process in which energy is not conserved. Let's say that scientist "A" proposes that the principle of conservation of energy is really not violated, but the missing part is in fact manifested as "Ximo", which is a new form of energy that we have not encountered before. In fact, the "Ximo" hypothesis does explain what has happened. But does that makes it a scientific hypothesis? It depends.

If scientist "A" proposes quantifiable experiments in which "Ximo" will be present and which will lead to the conservation of energy, then our modified conservation of energy principle acquires the status of a verified scientific hypothesis, and our trust in it increases each time it withstands the test of experiment or observation. On the other hand, if scientist "A" fails at producing the verifiable predictions, then "Ximo" is a mere convention, a crutch we use each time conservation of energy fails. In fact, the principle of conservation of energy has had many "Ximo" moments throughout its history--it appeared to be violated, but someone steps in an extends it to include a new forms of energy, which then becomes a new basis for verifiable predictions. The story of Pauli and the neutrino is quite remarkable example.

Even if a given explanation is plausible, it does not mean that it is necessarily true. It has to be able to explain and to predict at the same time. In fact, some hypotheses that succeeded at doing this were not even plausible. For example, relativity and quantum mechanics appeared quite counter-intuitive and bizarre when they were first proposed, but because they explained physical phenomena so well and were able to predict verifiable experimental and observational results, they forced themselves eventually as scientific theories. Science is ultimately an empirical enterprise, and that takes precedence over plausibility which is meditated through one's preferences and cultural biases. Of course science is quite complex and it usually has a cultural context, but that is a different story.

I do agree with you that we do not know much. But physics is like Niels Bohr had declared "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is. Physics concerns what we can say about nature... " Although we still have a long way to go in learning about the universe, we are still able to determine whether the claims other people make about it are scientific. Explaining and predicting would certainly redeem a claim as being scientific in the eyes of many people--I am one of them!

All the best,

Faik
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Member of the C@H Team!

Thank you for answering my post. I'm sorry i haven't responded to your reply sooner. Things on my end has kept me quite busy, even forcing me to stop my boinc cloud capability. But I understood what your post was conveying to me. Thank you for that.

You are very welcome, Nanakisan!

Faik
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Member of the C@H Team!