Читать книгу Geology For Dummies - Alecia M. Spooner - Страница 30

After you have summarized your observations, it’s time to propose an educated guess about the processes behind the patterns you observe. That educated guess is your hypothesis. In everyday speech people often say, “I have a theory” when they really mean “I have a hypothesis.” (I’ll get to theories in a few pages.)

A hypothesis is an inference about the patterns you have observed, based on your observations and any previous knowledge you have about the topic. It’s possible to have many different hypotheses about the observed patterns. How do you know which one is correct? You test it with an experiment, which I describe next.