Theories Dwindle in Number as Facts Emerge

The intensity and quantity of polemical literature on scientific problems frequently varies inversely as the number of direct observations on which the discussions are based: the number and variety of theories concerning a subject thus often form a coefficient of our ignorance. Beyond the superficial observations, direct and indirect, made by geologists, not extending below about one two-hundredth of the Earth's radius, we have to trust to the deductions of mathematicians for our ideas regarding the interior of the Earth; and they have provided us successively with every permutation and combination possible of the three physical states of matter—solid, liquid, and gaseous.

Notes:

From speculation to precision based on observations.

Folksonomies: observation theory

Taxonomies:
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/art and entertainment/books and literature (0.286299)

Keywords:
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Concepts:
Scientific method (0.934312): dbpedia | freebase
Binomial coefficient (0.914939): dbpedia | freebase | yago
Earth (0.904745): dbpedia | freebase
Mathematics (0.765737): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Geology (0.761985): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
History of geodesy (0.753808): dbpedia
Atmosphere (0.734228): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc
Plasma (0.714780): dbpedia | freebase | opencyc | yago

 Address delivered by the President of Section [Geology] at Sydney (Friday, Aug 21)
Proceedings of Meetings and Symposia>Speech:  Holland, Thomas Henry (1914), Address delivered by the President of Section [Geology] at Sydney (Friday, Aug 21), Report of the Eighty-Fourth Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science: Australia , Retrieved on 2012-06-05