CHEM103 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1.3: Design Of Experiments, Phlogiston Theory

• School: University of Alberta
• Department: Chemistry
• Course: CHEM103
• Professor: John Veinot

Document Summary

Chapter 1 keys to the study of chemistry. Scientific method: a process involving creative propositions and tests aimed at objective, verifiable discoveries. No single procedure and luck often plays a key role in discovery. Observations: the facts our ideas must explain; the most useful observations are quantitative b/c they can be analyzed to reveal trends. When the same observation is made by many investigators in many situations with no clear exceptions, it is summarized as a natural law. Hypothesis: a proposal made to explain an observation, it must be testable by experiment; hypotheses can be altered, but experimental results cannot. Experiment: a set of procedural steps that tests a hypothesis, an experiment often leads to a revised hypothesis and new experiments to test it. An experiment typically contains at least 2 variables. Both skill and creativity play a part in experimental design. Model: a simplified representation of some aspect of nature that we use to predict related phenomena.