Scientific Inference
Cód:
491_9781443731027
Originally published in 1931. SCIENTIFIC INFERENCE SCIENTIFIC INFERENCE by HAROLD JEFFREYS M. A., D. Sc., F R. S. Contents include: Preface .,....., P a g e vii Chapter I LOGIC AND SCIENTIFIC INFERENCE ... i Chapter II PROBABILITY 8 Chapter III SAMPLING 24 Chapter IV QUANTITATIVE LAWS 36 Chapter V ERRORS 52 Chapter VI PHYSICAL MAGNITUDES 84 Chapter VII MENSURATION 107 Chapter VIII NEWTONIAN DYNAMICS 131 Chapter IX LIGHT AND RELATIVITY 159 VI CONTENTS Chapter X MISCELLANEOUS QUESTIONS . . . page 191 Chapter XI OTHER THEORIES OF SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE . 218 Appendix I PROBABILITY IN LOGIC AND PURE MATHEMATICS . 229 Appendix II INFINITE NUMBERS 232 Appendix III THE ANALYTIC TREATMENT OF THE SINE AND COSINE 237 Lemmas 240 Index 245: PREFACE: THE present work had its beginnings in a series of papers published jointly some years ago by Dr Dorothy Wrinch and myself. Both before and since that time several books pur porting to give analyses of the principles of scientific inquiry have appeared, but it seems to me that none of them gives adequate attention to the chief guiding principle of both scientific and everyday knowledge that it is possible to learn from experience and to make inferences from it beyond the data directly known by sensation. Discussions from the philosophical and logical point of view have tended to the con clusion that this principle cannot be justified by logic alone, which is true, and have left it at that. In discussions by physicists, on the other hand, it hardly seems to be noticed that such a principle exists. In the present work the principle is frankly adopted as a primitive postulate and its consequences are developed. It is found to lead to an explanation and a justification of the high probabilities attached in practice to simple quantitative laws, and thereby to a recasting of the processes involved in description. As illustrations of the actual relations of scientific laws to experience it is shown how the sciences of mensuration and dynamic
Veja mais
