We will try to show you the stages in the Experimental Method
so that you can learn, from your everyday experiences, the true meaning
of each one of them. At the same time we will follow the steps that
Galileo must have taken in his research on the pendulum.
We will begin with observation.
Observing is different from looking. Normally when you look
you see very little. If you go into a room and afterwards you are
asked to describe the people, clothes, objects, etc. you have seen, you
will realise, when you try to do so, how little you have observed.
When you observe, you learn. Make the effort! Not everyone observes the same things. Try it out!
Intellectual curiosity promotes observation and makes us ask ourselves
questions. Why does this happen in this way? How does it happen? etc.
Our mind is "activated" and we are faced with a problem.
Galileo
observed a lamp swinging in a church and his brain began to pose questions:
Does it take as long to make a wide swing as a short one?
Does a lamp hanging from a short rope take as long to swing back and forwards as one on a long rope?
If a heavy lamp were hung on the same rope, would it take as long to swing back and forwards as a lighter lamp?
Some good questions on the whys and wherefores of a
phenomenon presuppose half of its explanation because they trigger
correct hypotheses.
