help on writing my hypothesis

[emilysky]

Having trouble writing an hypothesis for my science assignment. Ny topic I chose was "Black Holes" of course it is to broad of a topic but I then thought of "Dark Matter". I've been spending alot of time on the internet trying to find a clue. Any help out there for me???:shrug:

[emilysky]

maybe I should just change the topic

[spearo]

hi
tricky
you're looking for a "hypothesis" are you doing a research component where you're going to test the veracity of the null hypothesis by comparing groups
or
are you just writing an essay in science?

frank

[dpastern]

Emily - I don't think dark matter and black holes are related. Black holes are interesting - there's rotating types, non rotating types, small black holes, super massive black holes, etc. A good book on Black Holes (although old) is by William Kaufman.

http://www.amazon.com/Black-Holes-WarpedSpacetime-William-Kaufmann/dp/B001DCBEZ4/ref=sr_1_30?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255738515&sr=1-30

Dave

[Nesti]

Why don't you do one on the history of relativity? I mean, there's tones of information available AND it's really, really interesting. Lot's of people incorrectly think relativity is 'old hat', or perhaps a 'done deal', or worse, that it's boring, it's not. Very few people know the real history.

There are so many ‘unsung heroes and contributors which are very interesting in both what were thinking and what they found, as well as how they went about it. Einstein’s role, although significant, was not ‘Pat Malone’.

I guarantee you, it will educate you no end.

You can start at Aristotle, and then follow the path of Galileo, Newton, Euler, Gauss, Riemann (my favorite!), Maxwell, Lorentz & FitzGerald, Michelson & Morley, Minkowski, Christoffel, Ricci-Curbastro & Levi-Civita, Hilbert, and end with Einstein.

To be totally honest with you-you should already know who all these people are and their contributions intimately, if you were to tackle Black Holes, because Black Holes were theorized through the theories and studies of SR & GR, they were not discovers through direct observation.

Although Black Holes are interesting and exciting in their own right, the murder-mystery-thriller of the evolution of relativity is far more amazing!

Did you know that when Gauss’s servant came into his study to inform him that his wife was dying, he replied, “tell her to wait a moment-I’m in the middle of something”? Did you know that Riemann didn’t die of Tuberculosis, he committed suicide; believing his theorems were leading science down a dead-end he fell into depression? Did you know Einstein had at least one nervous break-down and that Hilbert gave him assistance with the final piece of GR, the field equations, even though Hilbert was about to publish his own [correct] version of GR? Did you know that not one of Aristotle’s questions on the nature of the world has been answered, and we’re not even close?

And you can put as much math with the history of relativity as you like; it's all there and in varying degree of complexity.

Just my perspective.

[Ian Robinson]

What level are you at (what year in high school , year 10, 11 or 12), or is this a college or uni assignment.

A hypothesis is best included in the abstract or introduction/theory section of a laboratory / experiment or metastudy writeup.

I see you are writing an essay.

If you are simply writing an essay based on a literature review , then the hypothesis goes in the abstract (briefly) and in more detail in your introduction section.

How many words are you limited to ?

You need to look at how papers are written in professional scientific journals (visit the sites for to get a handle on the format required for a proper scientific paper.

Try http://library.newcastle.edu.au/search~S16?/sphysics/sphysics/1%2C52%2C69%2CB/frameset&FF=sphysics+of+condensed+matter&1%2C%2C2
or
http://library.newcastle.edu.au/search~S16?/sastrophysics/sastrophysics/1%2C5%2C6%2CB/frameset&FF=sastrophysics+and+space+sciences +transactions+astra&1%2C1%2C/indexsort=-
you should be able to access this through your college or uni library , or get online access via your local library.

[xelasnave]

Dear Emilysky,

You are about to start on a journey that I know you will enjoy and although your science assignment may seem to be sent as a task to fast track by a given date take all the time you can to understand everything you can and be happy to find there will always be more questions than answers... and one day if you understand you may find an answer that has stumped all before you...

AND rather than wish you luck mention that old gem...the harder you practice/work the more good luck you have:D

MArks words are profound and I would encourage you to embrace the approach he outlines:thumbsup:.



Wonderful post Mark more than hinting at your wisdom and understanding:thumbsup:.

I wish more people could embrace your understanding of the lives of the great men behind the gathering of our accumulated knowledge.

I dont know how science is taught in school but I feel a greater understanding of the people behind the ideas would be helpful... all the great minds listed should be the inspiration for people not ..with the greatest of respect..Mick Jagger or Brittknees Speers and the like...


I always find inspiration in knowing how some of these wonderful minds could function often in personal torment to still develope their hypothisis to scientific theory.

On a cloudy night we must present those ancient unanswered questions on the forum as it would be interesting discussion I am sure.

alex:):):)

[sjastro]

Riemann commit suicide? That's news to me.

Gauss was supposedly asked what was his greatest mathematical discovery, to which he replied the brilliant mind of his pupil Riemann.

Steven

[Nesti]

Yeah, in the process of investigating and back-checking stuff that I was being fed from my tutor, I have seen two versions of almost everything. I have seen a more publicly touted version, and a little know, internally kept version.

I'll give you a simple example; Einstein was referred to by one of his teacher's as a lazy old dog right? And this is often used as a type of "under-dog' story, you know, some misunderstood student, told he would amount to nothing, then becomes the most famous scientist in history and changes the way we look at space and time, right? But what these 'folk tales' conveniently leave out, as in this case, was that Einstein's math teacher was Hermann Minkowski. His comments were accurate, at the time Einstein was lazy with his math, he was disenchanted and felt everything was explainable within much simpler calculations...along the line of what Maxwell had done.

Also, that Einstein was a supportive member of Princeton University...he wasn't, he hated the people there, and visited the math science faculty on only one occasion in the 40 or so years that he lived there...and that was only to talk briefly with Feynman. Einstein would write to the queen of Holland, and in his letters he spoke quite bluntly.

An example of a more complex one is; there is a kind of cold war going on. In that the old school (Cambridge, Oxford etc) support a ‘Field’ type structure of existence, whereas the new school (Princeton, Stamford etc) are endorsing higher dimensionality; the old Cosmic Ether’ (since higher dimensional space theories are essentially a type of ether). This argument stems way-back to the wave or corpuscular nature of light. So it’s an old fight, but it is still being waged even today.

There are hundreds of examples like these. The public are told whatever they need to know, while the truth, whether a large or small deviation from the truth, circulates internally.

Things like this are not openly made known to the public; much of the history has been given a gloss finish, but the truth is far from this.

I think it's all a case of vying for budgets and public support. A quote from the move 'The Right Stuff', "no bucks-no Buck Rogers".

[Nesti]

I put Riemann above even Newton.

[renormalised]

What's more, Mark, science isn't the only subject where this sort of thing is going on. History and archaeology is full of it.

[Nesti]

Yeah, not surprised. The story of "The Dead Cat"...it's all about 'context'.