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“theory”
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“theory”
3. Scientific method, developoment of theory to predict new phenomena
The development of a theory that is used to predict new phenomena where the theory is a general statement that explains the facts.
A theory can lead to a new conclusion or the discovery of a phenomenon. Developments of a theory often result in a change in paradigm; that is, looking at or thinking about a scientific problem in a totally different way as indicated by a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitute a way of viewing reality for the scientific community that shares them.
—Based on information compiled from "Why Is Measurement Important to Science?"
by Patricia Barnes-Svarney, Editorial Director; The New York Public Library Science Desk Reference;
A Stoneson Press Book, Macmillan Publishers; New York; 1995; page 2.
adaptive theory of sleeping
A theory that the sleep pattern of human beings developed after the species began living in caves, which offered protection from encounters with powerful night time predators.
Big Bang Theory
1. A theory of the origin of the universe in which all matter and space originated in a cataclysmic explosion, the remnant of which we see in the present expansion of the universe as a whole.
2. The hypothetical "massive explosive" event that is said to have marked the origin of the universe as we know it, about 18 billion years ago.
According to the theory, at the time of the Big Bang, the entire universe was squeezed into a hot, superdense state and the explosion threw the compact material outward, producing the expanding universe.
central place theory
The interpretation of city systems set forth by German geographer Walter Christaller in 1933 which centers on consumer demand, including the maximum distance consumers will travel for a given product and the minimum market size necessary to sustain them.
geocentric theory
Any theory of the solar system or the universe that places the earth at the center.
heliocentric theory
A theory for the motion of the planets that has the sun at its correct place in the center of the solar system.
number theory
The study of the properties of numbers, and the relationships between them.
steady-state theory
1. A theory of the evolution of the universe that states that the universe has always been in the state it is now, which leads to the implication that the universe has no origin, but has always existed.
2. A rival theory to that of the Big Bang which claims that the universe has no origin but is expanding because new matter is being created continuously throughout the universe.
The theory was proposed in 1948 by Austrian-born British cosmologist Hermann Bondi, Austrian-born U.S. astronomer and physicist Thomas Gold, and English astronomer Fred Hoyle, but this concept was challenged in 1965 by the discovery of cosmic background radiation and is now largely rejected by scientists.
