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Theory and Experience

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Physical Reality – Construction or Discovery?

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Abstract

In summary of the two preceding chapters, the general structure of physical knowledge is presented. The analysis of representative examples of physical laws demonstrates that they can be neither discovered nor falsified by experiment alone. The subsequent definition of the concept of physical law enables its demarcation from empirical statements and hypotheses. Since the relationship between theory and experience is not unequivocal, there are various options available to react to discrepancies between theory and experiment. The scientific applications are the largest units subject to refutation in an actual comparison between theory and experiment, and they constitute the contribution of the theory to the empirical content. The methods of consistent adjustment are elucidated with several examples, emphasizing their variety in establishing the relations between theory and experience.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Chemistry and Physics of Materials, Salzburg University, Salzburg, Austria

    Prof. Dr. Michael Grodzicki

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  1. Prof. Dr. Michael Grodzicki
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Correspondence to Michael Grodzicki .

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Grodzicki, M. (2021). Theory and Experience. In: Physical Reality – Construction or Discovery?. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-74579-0_4

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