Related papers: What Makes A Discovery
What can we discover? As the discussion in this paper is limited to ontological considerations, it does not deal with the discovery of new concepts. It raises the following question: What are the entities or existents that we can discover?…
Bayesian Inference is a powerful approach to data analysis that is based almost entirely on probability theory. In this approach, probabilities model {\it uncertainty} rather than randomness or variability. This thesis is composed of a…
Breakthrough discoveries and inventions involve unexpected combinations of contents including problems, methods, and natural entities, and also diverse contexts such as journals, subfields, and conferences. Drawing on data from tens of…
For the past 400 years, astronomers have sought to observe and interpret the Universe by building more powerful telescopes. These incredible instruments extend the capabilities of one of our most important senses, sight, towards new limits…
Some thoughts are presented on the inter-relation between beauty and truth in science in general and theoretical physics in particular. Some conjectural procedures that can be used to create new ideas, concepts and results are illustrated…
Testing hypotheses is an issue of primary importance in the scientific research, as well as in many other human activities. Much clarification about it can be achieved if the process of learning from data is framed in a stochastic model of…
This paper introduces Reflective Empiricism, an extension of empirical science that incorporates subjective perception and consciousness processes as equally valid sources of knowledge. It views reality as an interplay of subjective…
A common flaw of astronomers is to believe that they know the truth even when data is scarce. I provide ten examples where this approach led to wrong strategic decisions in research plans, causing unnecessary delays in finding the truth. In…
Scientific progress has long been understood as recombinant, with breakthroughs arising when existing ideas are joined in new ways. Empirical work in this tradition has focused on the inputs to discovery, asking whether a paper draws…
Understanding the laws that govern a phenomenon is the core of scientific progress. This is especially true when the goal is to model the interplay between different aspects in a causal fashion. Indeed, causal inference itself is…
The dream of building machines that can do science has inspired scientists for decades. Remarkable advances have been made recently; however, we are still far from achieving this goal. In this paper, we focus on the scientific discovery…
The Decadal Survey of Astronomy and Astrophysics created five panels to identify the science themes that would define the field's research frontiers in the coming decade. I will describe the conclusions of one of these, the Panel on…
The discovery of cosmic radio emission by Karl Jansky in the course of searching for the source of interference to telephone communications and the instrumental advances which followed, have led to a series of new paradigm changing…
The statistical methods used by the ATLAS Collaboration for setting upper limits or establishing a discovery are reviewed, as they are fundamental ingredients in the search for new phenomena. The analyses published so far adopted different…
A model is proposed for the creation and transmission of scientific knowledge, based on the network of citations among research articles. The model allows to assign to each article a nonnegative value for its creativity, i. e. its creation…
We revisit and generalize the concept of composite likelihood as a method to make a probabilistic inference by aggregation of multiple Bayesian agents, thereby defining a class of predictive models which we call composite Bayesian. This…
The history of science reveals that major discoveries are not predictable. Naively, one might conclude therefore that it is not possible to artificially cultivate an environment that promotes discoveries. I suggest instead that open…
Because there are similarities between the evaluation of alternative stories in criminal trials and the evaluation of scientific theories, scholars have looked to literature in epistemology and the philosophy of science for insights on the…
In the first part of this paper we summarize the discovery and the early study of the gamma-ray bursts. The second part studies the spatial and sky distribution of the bursters. The brightness distribution is also studied. In the conclusion…
Cosmological models that invoke a multiverse - a collection of unobservable regions of space where conditions are very different from the region around us - are controversial, on the grounds that unobservable phenomena shouldn't play a…