Science and Philosophy
Our curriculum delves into the intersection of science and philosophy, exploring fundamental questions about the nature of scientific knowledge and the existence of unobservable entities.
The fundamental flaw to all of science?
- We obtain scientific law through Induction: Generalize from specific observations to a general scientific law.
- But why do we trust this process of generalization? Just because the sun rises from the east every day doesn’t mean it will continue doing so tomorrow!!! This is also known as Hume’s Problem of Induction.
- To resolve this problem, Popper’s Theory of Falsification can be used.
Do the unobservables in Science really exist?
- You can’t actually observe quarks by themselves due to color confinement, but we claim they exist because they explain Deep Inelastic Scattering very well.
- So do quarks actually exist? Or did we just make up such entities to explain phenomena more easily?
- We will use this example to delve into the Realist vs Anti-Realist Debate in the Philosophy of Science.
Numerical Methods in Research (difficult)
- Approximations (Taylor series) and numerical error analysis
- Root finding methods
- Numerical Integration and differentiation (differential equations)
- Numerical Simulation Techniques (RK4, FEM, FDM), and their applications in physics/Engineering (from simple scenarios like a falling ball to stress analysis in rigid structures)