Topic: What begins people’s discovery of science?

Thesis:
“Hypotheses non fingo,” Newton confidently claimed. Therefore, he arbitrarily excluded the “hypothesis” from the experimental philosophy. Affected by him, more and more remarks neglected the importance of the “hypotheses” since then. As a result, it becomes a common view that discovery should proceed from analytic methods stricto sensu. Then, what is the real definition of hypothesis in Newton’s opinion ? Will he believe in intuition? Therefore, I will try to explain the definition of both “hypothesis” and “intuition”, and then attach significance to the “intuition” to show how the intuition begins a new discovery of science and struggle to prove that sometimes, the intuition can be a quite strong power to lead us to reach our confirmations.

Outline: 1. The moment when I realize the importance of the intuition (Faraday) 2. The definition of hypothesis and intuition 3. The supporter- Einstein (using his examples as detailed ones) 4. The other famous successful discoveries in four different fields: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography (describing the main story of each example) 5. How should we treat the intuition? What should we do after the intuition? 6. The conclusion includes
1) The importance of the intuition,
2) The significant role it has acted in the history of science,
3) Its efficiency of finding a certain answer,
4) An interesting analogy to show the role of intuition

Body: * How important the intuition is!
It seems a coincident chance that I came up with this idea. It was an afternoon that I was searching the background information of the experiment 4&5 (about the magnetism) on the Internet. But the Wikipedia just sounds weird because it said that: In 1821, soon after Oersted discovered the phenomenon of electromagnetism, Faraday started to think that whether the magnetic field can produce the electric current. By nearly ten-year unremitting efforts, he finally succeeded in discovering the electromagnetic induction. Then I came up with a basic question: How he comes up the idea that whether the magnetic field can produce the electric current? However, I could not find anything that we would regard it as scientific experimental methods. Instead, I believe it was the intuition that exactly gave him the power to continue his experiments for more than ten tough years. It shocked me because I have never imagine such a strong power that human’s intuition can have. After that, when I tried to find some scientific search on this confusion, it seems that no one knows the real answer, but scholars have deduced that because he had noticed the symmetry of the nature. (This can be found in Maxwell’s equation as well.) Instead of saying he noticed that, the more proper words to describe his intuition should be that he firmly believed since electricity can produce magnetism, the opposite would also be true. If it were not for his strong faith, maybe it would take people a longer time to discover it. However, this belief is not groundless. It is his observation of this symmetrical world and his experience of studying two relevant things that encourage him to verify his hypothesis, which came from his intuition, daringly. Suddenly, my mind came up with an interesting topic that whether many famous discoveries began with humans’ intuition. Soon, I associated the former experiment we have done since then. I realized that the reason why Galileo conducted his experiment is also to verify his assumption. On the contrary, Aristotle failed to give his assumption why rainbow has got sever colors thus making him be ambivalent when discussing the resource of the light. In conclusion, to some extent, intuition and assumption are crucial.

On the contrary, there come conflicts after I have read the reference book that is introducing the theory of Newton. In Principia, “Hypotheses non fingo,” Newton confidently claimed. Therefore, I made up my mind to do adequate research on the topic that is discussing the importance of humans’ intuition because in my opinion, I believe that intuition played, plays and will always play a significant role in science field.

* What are the definition of hypothesis and intuition?
It is strange that Newton excluded the “hypothesis” from the acceptable experimental methods. Didn’t he make hypotheses when he started his scientific discovery? Therefore, I decided to find the actual meaning of “hypothesis” by Newton. He stated in his book that “[f]or whatever is not deduced from the phenomena must be called a hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, or based on occult qualities, or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.”(the Principia: Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy, p. 943), which means he did not admit the importance of hypothesis at all. What’s more, he gave us his reasons: “And if anyone offers conjectures about the truth of things from the mere possibility of hypotheses, I do not see by what stipulation anything certain can be determined in any science; since one or another set of hypotheses may always be devised which will appear to supply new difficulties. Hence I judged that one should abstain from contemplating hypotheses, as from improper argumentation.”(The Correspondence of Isaac Newton, From Newton to Oldenburg, June 10, 1672, p. 169) We should notice that there existed some historical reasons that he raised the sentence that “Hypotheses non fingo” because someone thought he was introducing some mysterious power when he explained the concept of universal gravitation. So he posed this sentence to prove he had not made any hypothesis. Moreover, I found that Newton’s understanding of “hypothesis” was different from people’s understandings of it nowadays. Because he also made hypotheses when he studied the light, however, that hypothesis is a kind of hypothesis that based on the phenomena.

Speaking of the intuition, in Collins English Dictionary, the definition of intuition can be listed as follows:
1. knowledge or belief obtained neither by reason nor by perception
2. instinctive knowledge or belief
3. a hunch or unjustified belief
4. (Philosophy) philosophy immediate knowledge of a proposition or object such as Kant's account of our knowledge of sensible objects
5. the supposed faculty or process by which we obtain any of these
Here, the intuition that we are talking about is the first three definitions from the dictionary. It seems that there is no scientific evidence to prove that intuition comes from something solid.

In my opinion, there are two kinds of intuition. One is a kind of intuition that cannot be admitted by Newton. It just came out suddenly. Examples, which involve this kind of intuition, are almost discoveries that can only be imagined in humans’ brains. The discoveries cannot be witnessed in daily life. I will talk about this kind of intuition that was found on Albert Einstein. The other kind of intuition is actually a hypothesis when the scientists saw some relevant phenomena. To be more specific, the first step is that a scientist saw a relevant phenomenon, then his brain formed a rough idea- intuition and after that he made a hypothesis that was required to be proved. In other words, the process of reaching a hypothesis must include the subject’s intuition as its first step. People first have a rough idea about their intuition. Then, if they consider that their intuition may be right, they will come up with a hypothesis according to their original intuition. Obviously, this kind of intuition can be accepted by Newton because it based on the phenomena.

Therefore, I realize that it is not right to say that Newton objected to all the hypotheses but somehow, I also believe the first kind of intuition is valuable although it cannot be accepted by Newton. Next, I am going to introduce a great scientist, who used the first kind of intuition, and finally made huge achievements. * A great supporter who attaches importance to intuition-Albert Einstein
Contrary to Newton, another famous scientist in history, Albert Einstein, deeply believes in intuition. “I believe in intuition and inspiration.” He said that in his book On Cosmic Religion and Other Opinions and Aphorisms. For Einstein, insight did not come from logic or mathematics. It came, as it does for artists, from intuition and inspiration. Later he told one friend, "When I examine myself and my methods of thought, I come close to the conclusion that the gift of imagination has meant more to me than any talent for absorbing absolute knowledge." Moreover, he added, "All great achievements of science must start from intuitive knowledge.”

A best example to prove this argument is the establishment of the theory of relativity. When Einstein was 16, he conducted a famous thought experiment: chasing a beam of light. And this thought experiment had played a memorable role in his development of special relativity. “He inhabited a laboratory of the mind and loved to conduct what he called gedankenexperimente — thought experiments. One of his favorite mental challenges involved transporting himself aboard an imaginary ray of light so that he might observe a second parallel beam travelling alongside him at an equivalent speed. He wondered what he would see. What would a “stationary” beam of light look like?” (http://www.thestar.com/news/insight/2012/08/11/einstein_determined_light_is_by_definition_always_moving.html ) The weird conflict deduced by the thought experiment confused Einstein himself as well. However, it was still his intuition on physics that led him to come up with the significant theory of relativity, which was erected in 1905. Where did all those ideas come from? Intuition.

Using Einstein’s theory of relativity is a very evident and direct counter-example towards Newton because the content of that theory is used to explain something that cannot happen in common life. That is to say, nothing that Newton regarded as experimental methods can be applied to solve such kinds of problems when talking of a case that a man has the speed of the beam of light. Oppositely, the theory of relativity strongly proved that intuition could play a crucial role when solving scientific problems. Additionally, it gives us a nearly perfect answer eventually. I know some people may still argue with me that the reason why intuition is so important in this experiment is merely that this experiment is impractical. In other words, in some experiments that are going to talk about some phenomena happen in real life, does intuition still have such much importance? I will state that the answer is still yes.

* The other famous successful discoveries in four different fields: Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Geography
It is not fair to say that intuition only works on the experiment that only can be conducted in our minds because we can find many successful examples in different subjects though in all the following examples, scientists used the second kind of intuition. Next, what I am going to do is to briefly introduce some well-known and influential discoveries that started because of the scientists’ intuition.

1. Archimedes' principle
I think Archimedes’ discoveries about the buoyant force can be a classic and typical example that showed us the power of intuition. Archimedes's tale took place 2,200 years ago when King Hieron II of Syracuse in Sicily gave a goldsmith a bar of gold and ordered him to make it into a crown. Although the weight is the same, the king still suspected that the goldsmith had substituted a little part of the gold for cheaper metal such as silver and owned the leftover gold by himself. Therefore, the King wanted to find someone to tell him the truth that whether the goldsmith had stolen the gold. He asked his court scientist Archimedes to find out. “Find out how much gold had been stolen?”

But how can we find out the truth? Archimedes thought about the problem all day and night. One day he was about to have his bath, but he was busy thinking about the task. He did not notice the bathtub. Hence he did not find that the water in the bathtub was already full to the brim. As soon as he slid into the bathtub, immediately, a large quantity of water flowed over the brim of the bathtub. He understood all the principles suddenly. Without putting on his clothes, he jumped out of the bathtub and shouted excitedly, “Eureka! Eureka!” (Eureka in Greek means “I have found it.”)
Someone such as Galileo suspected that this is not a real story that happened then. Such opinions do not affect my statement. Because I think, even though the story is fictive, the process of how Archimedes found such important principles involves his intuition somehow or there will exist some works to explain how he discovered this principle. Instead, this story was the only satisfied explanation so far. In fact, Archimedes sought a solution that applied the principle known in hydrostatics as Archimedes' principle, which he describes in his treatise On Floating Bodies. This principle states that a body immersed in a fluid experiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the fluid it displaces. (Carroll, Bradley W. "Archimedes' Principle". Weber State University. Archived from the original on 8 August 2007. Retrieved 2007-07-23.)

2. Darwin – a satisfied explanation of the evolution
This example is a famous example in the biology field. We all know Darwin, the well-known biologist for his contributions to evolutionary theory. However, at the beginning, when he first finished the voyage of the Beagle, he could not find a satisfied explanation and could not understand the forces that drove the origin of new species.

By chance, he read the works of Thomas Malthus. “In opposition to the utopian thinkers of the day, Malthus believed that unless people exercised restraint in the number of children they had, the inevitable shortfall of food in the face of spiraling population growth would doom mankind to a ceaseless struggle for existence. Out of that unforgiving battle, some would survive and many would not, as famine, disease, and war put a ceiling on the growth in population.” (http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/02/5/l_025_01.html)

These ideas galvanized Darwin's thinking about the struggles for survival in the wild. In other words, his intuition suddenly came up with a perfect solution. Before reading Malthus, Darwin had thought that living things reproduced just enough individuals to keep populations stable. But now he came to realize that, as in human society, populations bred beyond their means, leaving survivors and losers in the effort to exist.

Immediately, Darwin saw that the variation he had observed in wild populations would produce some individuals that were slightly better equipped to thrive and reproduce under the particular conditions at the time. Those individuals would tend to leave more offspring than their fellows, and over many generations their traits would come to dominate the population. "The result of this would be the formation of new species," he wrote later. "Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work."

The first and second examples here can be described as “A-ha” experience. It means that all the things become clear suddenly. The pattern of “A-ha” experience is usually in this way: First, there is a problem that the scientist has struggled to solve for a long time. Secondly, when he is doing some other things that seems not relevant to this problem at all, but he suddenly notices that there may be some similar principles and close connections between the things he is doing and the problem that has confused him for a long time. Someone may argue that this kind of experience cannot be called intuition. Instead, it should be inspiration. However, I think it is exactly the intuition that gives him the hint that the things he is doing and the problem he has to solve has close relationship with each other. In other words, intuition arouses his inspiration and eventually helps him to grasp the similarity between these two stuffs. As a result, all the “A-ha” experience involves humans’ intuition.

3. Huygens-Fresnel principle
Some people may not be familiar with this principle because The Huygens–Fresnel principle (named after Dutch physicist Christian Huygens and French physicist Augustin-Jean Fresnel) is a method of analysis applied to problems of wave propagation both in the far-field limit and in near-field diffraction, which is not fundamental physical knowledge. It is not necessary to know the meaning of every single word in this principle, but it is really meaningful for us to know how significant it is.

Huygens came up with his individual principle first. He provided us with a qualitative explanation of linear and spherical wave propagation, and to derive the laws of reflection and refraction using this principle. In 1816, Fresnel added his principle on the basis of Huygens’ and then enabled the whole principle, which we learn nowadays, to explain both the rectilinear propagation of light and also diffraction effects. Also, from Huygens -Fresnel principle, formulas are derived for determining the distribution of the field and intensity on axis when focused Gaussian beam is diffracted at a circular aperture. What a wonderful principle it is! However, when I read all the background of this principle, I found some words like “proposed”, “assumed”, “arbitrary assumptions”, etc. In fact, it is a principle which completely based on scientists’ intuition other than any mathematical or physical deduction. Consequently, many other scientists doubted that “whether it is an accurate representation of reality or whether ‘Huygens' principle actually does give the right answer but for the wrong reasons’.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huygens–Fresnel_principle)

However, what we cannot deny is that although it is not valid itself in many scientists’ opinion, it helped the subsequent scientists to understand many theories ina clear way, get a rough idea and finally lead them to the profound conclusion. Because after Huygens and Fresnel, Gustav Robert Kirchhoff and Arnold Johannes Wilhelm Sommerfeld deduced a similar formula from the general theory of fluctuations with a specific form of function which represents the change of the inclination factor. If it were not for this principle, not for Huygens and Fresnel’s bravery to conclude their intuition into and the hypotheses into the formula, maybe it would take the subsequent scientists a very long time to get the idea of that conception.

4. Louis Pasteur- the nature of tartaric acid
All the above examples are physical discoveries. Now, I will introduce a chemical discovery that also came from the intuition of a scientist. Louis Pasteur, a French chemist and microbiologist renowned for his discoveries of the principles of vaccination, microbial fermentation and pasteurization. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases, and his discoveries have saved countless lives ever since. But what I am going to discuss here is not something related these famous achievements, it is another discovery that seems really accidental. The whole process of finding the nature of tartaric acid is an elaborated achievement of using humans’ intuition.

After I have searched all the relevant information on the website, I integrated and combined them. Then what I found out was that Louis Pasteur followed all his intuition：he first supposed that the structure of tartaric acid is not symmetric, then the experiment proved his assumption. And that explained the reason why a solution of this compound derived from living things rotated the plane of polarization of light passing through it. Then he suggested that paratartaric acid had symmetrical structure because the “rotating” phenomenon would not happen. However, this time, his intuition was wrong. Therefore, he amended the assumption and supposed that Pasteur separated the left and right crystal shapes from each other to form two piles of crystals: in solution one form rotated light to the left, the other to the right, while an equal mixture of the two forms canceled each other's effect, and does not rotate the polarized light. This time, what he had supposed was exactly true. Moreover, this was the first time anyone had demonstrated chiral molecules.

The third and the fourth example remind us an interesting fact that sometimes, wrong intuition can still lead to a correct discovery. After thinking it over, we can understand why intuition can have this amazing power. If someone checked his intuition by using scientific ways and find they cannot correspond with each other. That means, his intuition is wrong to some extent. Therefore, in order to figure out a right solution, he will try to amend his original intuition and come up with a new hypothesis step by step. That is the reason why the wrong intuition still has the value per se and can inspire people and arouse our curiosity to make correct discoveries.

5. Wegener- the theory of plate tectonics
It is true that humans’ intuition plays a crucial role in every subject. Wegener was a German geologist who gave a substantial basis for today's model of plate tectonics. But, how could he propose such a significant hypothesis? The answer is intuition.

In 1910, Wegener saw a map when he was having a rest. What surprised him was that he noticed the matching coastlines of the Atlantic continents -- they looked on maps like they had once been fit together. Therefore, his intuition gave him the idea that maybe in the past, they, in fact, was a complete land. After that, in 1911 Wegener also came across several scientific documents stating that there were identical fossils of plants and animals on each of these continents and he claimed that all of the Earth's continents were at one time connected into one large supercontinent. In 1912 he presented the idea of "continental displacement" which would later become known as continental drift to explain how the continents moved toward and away from one another throughout the Earth's history.

* How should we treat the intuition? What should we do after the intuition?
If intuition is so important, why did Newton think that it was not worth mentioning? I would feel it acceptable that if one only has intuition, then it is still impossible for him to achieve the chance to make an influential discovery. It is simple to explain because the intuition is something that acts like the catalyst in a chemical reaction. Without it, the whole process will take a long time to happen. However, if we merely have the catalyst without the reactants, then the chemical reaction will never happen.

Speaking of the last example, which is about Wegener. If were not for his effort to explore the scene that he saw on the map, his intuition was just his intuition. It cannot be called “Wegener’s discovery”. Actually, before Wegener found this interesting fact, other three people also had noticed this. In 1620, Francis Bacon had raised the possibility of the connection of Western Hemisphere, Europe and Africa. In 1668, R.P.F Plassay, a Frenchman, considered that before the Great Flood, the Americas and other parts of the Earth are not separate. In 19th century, the Austrian geologist Hughes noted that the major land formation in the southern hemisphere is very similar, and therefore they should be fit into a single continent called Gondwana. Finally, in 1912, Alfred Wegener formally proposed the theory of continental drift, and published in 1915 in the "sea of origin," a book made the argument. Why cannot people before him create the theory of plate tectonics? Maybe there are many other reasons, but I believe the most important factor is that they did not devote themselves to proving the intuition as diligently as Wegener. Thinking of Faraday. It finally took him almost 10 years to prove that the magnetic field can produce the electric current. If he only relied on his intuition, it was far from enough to discover something amazing.

* Conclusion
Most intuition came after the scientists saw something relevant, which is the second kind of intuition that is not against Newton’s ideas. But, there still exists the first kind of intuition that mostly used to think about some “invisible” things (quantum mechanics) or impossible things (Albert Einstein’s thought experiment). I am still arguing that both of them should be treated properly and regarded as valuable things. Until now, I understand more and admit that Newton was careful about how he discovered the world. However, we should still appreciate the value of such kind of human instinct - intuition.

Speaking of the role that intuition acts in a certain scientific discovery, I would like to use the analogy again. Intuition acts like the catalyst while the following steps of striving to prove one’s intuition act like the reactants. Without hard work afterwards, even if one has extremely brilliant intuition, nothing will happen after all. The definition of “catalyst” is that it is a special substance that can speed up a certain chemical reaction without taking part in the reaction. So does intuition. It is true that intuition does not give people the right answer. However, intuition is an incredible power that speeds up the whole process of an amazing scientific discovery. In my paper, I also have discussed an interesting topic that even wrong intuition can lead to a correct discovery. It can also be applied in this analogy. Because if a catalyst fails to make the chemical reaction, the scientist will try another substance to be the catalyst or they may change the reactants, thus aiming at making the experiment happen successfully. Similarly, wrong intuition can encourage people to go close to the correct explanation by continuously amending their original intuition. That is the reason why I believed no matter one’s intuition is correct or not, it supports us to approach our confirmations.

Therefore, I would argue that the importance of intuition is that it not only inspires scientist to confirm their assumptions but also provides human beings with efficiency in the exploration of trying to know how the world functions. It is such a crucial power that everyone should cherish it and use it properly.