One of the most difficult things for students an d non-scientists to get ‘straight’ are the terms: Theory, Hypothesis, Law, Fact and Belief. This exercise consists of a series of statements, which you will mark as a statement of a Theory (T), Hypothesis (H), Fact (F), Law (L) or Belief (B).
Fact/Observation: A basic statement established by experiment or observation. All facts are tru e under spe cific conditions. Some facts may be false when re-tested with better instruments.
Law: A logical relationship between two or more things that is based on a variet y of facts and proven hypothesis. It is often a mathematical statement of how two or more quantities relate to each other.
Hypothesis: A tentative statement such as ‘if A happens then B must happen’ that can be tested b y direct experiment or observation. A proven hypothesis can be expressed as a law or a theory. A disproven hypothesis can sometimes be re-tested and found correct as measurements improve.
Theory: An explanation for why certain laws and facts e xist that ca n be tested to determine its accuracy. Belief: A st atement that is not scie ntifically provable in the same wa y as facts, la ws, hypotheses or theories. Scientifically disproven beliefs can still be held to be true.
1 – For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.
2 - F = ma
3 – Water freezes at 32 F
4 – The Earth is a sphere.
5 – The universe is expanding.
6 – Humans were created separately from all other life on Earth.
7 – Humans and gorillas evolved from a common ancestor species.
8 – Light is an electromagnetic phenomenon described by Maxwell’s Laws
9 – Matter is comprised of atoms.
10 –The sun will die in 7.5 billion years.
11 – Earth’s magnetic field is generated by a conducting fluid in its core.
12 – Sunspots are colder than the surface of the Sun.
13 – There are such things as ghosts.
14 - The solar system formed from a primordial disk of gas and asteroidal material.
15 - Matter can be converted into energy.
16 – Energy can be converted into matter.
17 – The positions of the planets can cause humans to act in specific ways.
18 - Momentum is the product of a body’s mass and its velocity.
19 – The core of the Sun has a temperature of 14.5 million Centigrade.
20 – We will never know how life started on Earth.
21 – The Milky Way is a spiral-type galaxy.
22 – Black holes exist.
23 – The sun will rise tomorrow morning.
24 – The Earth is older than 10,000 years.
25 – Genetic mutations cause organisms to change over time.
26 – Primitive human-like creatures existed 2 million years ago.
27 – If I jump out a window I will die.
28 – The universe was created at the Big Bang.
29 – The first generations of stars appeared about 100 million years after the Big Bang.
30 – Space exists in 10-dimensions not just 3.
31 – Some numbers are more lucky than others
32 – More babies are born, and crimes take place, during the full moon.
33 – The Coriolus Force makes water go down a drain counterclockwise.
34 - The first multi-cellular organisms appeared on Earth about 560 million years ago.
35 – The inverse-square law for gravity and Newton’s laws of motion explain why orbits are ellipses