EINSTEIN on, what is science and how do scientists make creative discoveries?

What is Science?

This is what we learned in school:

Make an observation.
Ask a question.
Form a hypothesis, or testable explanation.
Make a prediction based on the hypothesis.
Test the prediction.
Use the results to make new hypotheses or predictions.

But is this how Einstein made discoveries about the speed of light? No!!

He did not use the formula above. Einstein had speculated already as a schoolboy, at the age of sixteen, on what would occur if he ran after a light signal sent out by him.

His autobiography reveals that he discovered relativity after ten years’ reflection...from a paradox he imagined at the age of sixteen:"If I pursue a beam of light with the velocity "c" I should observe that beam of light as a spatially oscillatory electromagnetic field at rest."

He imagined this claim without the benefit of any experience, data, experiments or equations:“From the very beginning it appeared to me intuitively clear that, judged from the standpoint of such an observer, everything would have to happen according to the same laws as for an observer who, relative to the earth, was at rest.”

So Einstein’s scientific method of discovery was very different from what we learned. Why is that?

Madame Curie, Johannes Kepler, Copernicus and Newton discovered wonders by using a method like Einstein’s, not the method we learned in High School. They saw a "wonder" and imagined a solution.

“It is owing to their wonder that people began to philosophize.”--Aristotle

“My sense of god is my sense of wonder about the universe.”--Einstein

“I give infinite thanks to God, who has been pleased to make me the first observer of marvelous things.”--Galileo

Creative acts are charged with strong personal feelings and commitments. Discovery is not value-free--it begins with a sense of wonder about the amazing universe around and in us. Discovery happens when we use a different type of knowledge and analysis---tacit knowing.

Tacit knowing is the informed guesses, hunches and imaginings that are part of exploratory acts, and are motivated by ‘passions’. Tacit knowing may be aimed at discovering ‘truth’, but it is knowing that is difficult to state in propositional terms.

As we integrate particulars and tangibles with our deep, tacit knowing we will discover the mysteries of the universe.

Copernicus:
He practiced astronomy as a tacit knower. With little empirical data Copernicus put the sun at the center of the solar system. The best evidence in 1500 had the earth at the center—that is why he was not believed. His theory was not supported by good empirical data till 100 years later. He had a tacit belief in a harmony of balanced beauty that supports his observations and theory.

Discovery:
“Discovery comes in stages, and at the beginning the scientist has but a vague and subtle intimations. Yet these anticipations contain a deepened sense of the nature of things and an awareness of the facts that might serve as clues to a suspected coherence in nature. Such expectations are decisive for the inquiry, yet their content is elusive, and the process by which they are reached often cannot be specified.” M Polanyi

Indeterminate future manifestations
“In discovery, you know that you have made contact with reality when you have a sense of the possibility of indeterminate future manifestations.”

Comprehension
Clues and tools are things used but not observed in themselves. They function as extensions of our bodily equipment. Acts of comprehension are non-critical. For we cannot possess any fixed framework that can be critically tested.

Such is the personal participation of the knower in all acts of understanding. But this does not make our understanding subjective.

Personal Knowledge
It seems reasonable to describe this fusion of the personal and the objective as Personal Knowledge. Personal knowledge is an intellectual commitment, and as such inherently hazardous.

It seems that scientific discovery is personal, passionate and emotional.