Exam (elaborations) Lecture notes 1 Concept of science.

This may be the first time you are doing scientific research. Your Ph.D. thesis will reflect all the stages of your research. There is a big difference between a master and Ph.D. thesis. The main difference is that you are doing scientific research that must be new, relevant, and practically meaningful. The novelty of the research means that you have to not only use well-known methods to solve a specific problem, but also do something that no one else has done before. To meet this challenge, you need to have a clearer understanding about a place of your research among others and be able to organize your research. This lecture will help you with this. Let's start with terminology Science (from the Latin word scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe Scientific research is the search for knowledge and for solutions to practical problems using this knowledge (often driven by curiosity) Scientific method seeks to objectively explain the events of nature in a reproducible way The main stages of a scientific method: an observation, a hypothesis, a test (i.e. the experiment that tries to simulate natural events under controlled conditions as appropriate to the discipline) Experimentation is especially important in science to avoid the correlation fallacy. If the hypothesis survived testing, it may become a scientific theory, a logically reasoned, self-consistent model for describing the behavior of certain natural phenomena. A theory describes the behavior of much broader sets of phenomena than a hypothesis. In fact, a theory is a hypothesis explaining various other hypotheses. Steps of Research Process • Step One: Define research problem • Step Two: Review of literature • Step Three: Formulate hypotheses • Step Four: Preparing the research design • Step Five: Data collection • Step Six: Data analysis • Step Seven: Interpretation and report writing The role of mathematics is crucial for science It is essential in the formation of hypotheses and theories It is used in quantitative scientific modeling, which can generate new hypotheses and predictions to be tested. It is used in observing and collecting measurements. Statistics, a branch of mathematics, is used to summarize and analyze data, which allow scientists to assess the reliability and variability of their experimental results. Computational science applies computing power to simulate real-world situations, enabling a better understanding of scientific problems than formal mathematics alone can achieve. So, let’s talk about the basic requirements for research organization While performing experiments to test hypotheses, scientists may have a preference for one outcome over another, and so it is important to ensure that science as a whole can eliminate this bias. This can be achieved by careful experimental design, transparency, and a thorough peer review process of the experimental results as well as any conclusions. After the results of an experiment are announced or published, it is normal practice for independent researchers to double-check how the research was performed, and to follow up by performing similar experiments to determine how dependable the results might be. Thus, all results must be reproducible, Scientific ethics must be respected i.e. falsification or fabrication of results and plagiarism are strictly prohibited. How to identify the type of your research? Any scientific research can be labeled as either basic or applied research Basic science also called fundamental science has the scientific research aim to improve scientific theories for improved understanding or prediction of natural or other phenomena. Applied science is the application of scientific knowledge transferred into a physical environment (testing a theoretical model through the use of formal science, solving a practical problem through the use of natural science). Scientific research can be basic or applied Basic research is the search for knowledge Applied research is the search for solutions to practical problems using this knowledge. You should remember that great deal of human understands comes from the curiosity-driven undertaking of basic research. This leads to options for technological advance that were not planned or sometimes even imaginable. This point was made by Michael Faraday when allegedly in response to the question "what is the use of basic research?" he responded: "Sir, what is the use of a new-born child?" In addition to this classification, science is divided into branches The branches of science, also referred to as sciences, "scientific fields", or "scientific disciplines," are commonly divided into three major groups: Formal sciences: the study of logic, mathemat