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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Can That Be Right?: Essays on Experiment, Evidence, and Science

Can That Be Right?: Essays on Experiment, Evidence, and Science

Franklin, A.

Hardcover

Series: Boston Studies in the Philosophy and History of Science, Book 199

General World HistoryHistory & Philosophy of SciencePhysics

ISBN10: 0792354648
ISBN13: 9780792354642
Publisher: Springer Nature
Published: Nov 30 1998
Pages: 318
Weight: 1.38
Height: 0.75 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English
In this collection of essays Allan Franklin defends the view that science provides us with knowledge about the world which is based on experimental evidence and on reasoned and critical discussion. In short, he argues that science is a reasonable enterprise.
He begins with detailed studies of four episodes from the history of modern physics: (1) the early attempts to detect gravity waves, (2) how the physics community decided that a proposed new elementary particle, 17-keV neutrino, did not exist, (3) a sequence of experiments on K meson decay, and (4) the origins of the Fifth Force hypothesis, a proposed modification of Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation.
The case studies are then used to examine issues such as how discord between experimental results is resolved, calibration of an experimental apparatus and its legitimate use in validating an experimental result, and how experimental results provide reasonable grounds for belief in both the truth of physical theories and in the existence of the entities involved in those theories.
This book is a challenge to the critics of science, both postmodern and constructivist, to provide convincing alternative explanations of the episodes and issues discussed. It should be of interest to philosophers, historians, and sociologists of science, and to scientists themselves.

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