Premises, Postulates and Facts

The development of any scientific theory closely resembles the construction of a building. It has its own foundation, layout and scaffoldings. The merit of any scientific theory completely relies on the choice of these elements of a theory. This article tries to gain further insight on the topic.

Premises, Postulates, and Facts:

·        Any scientific theory can be conceived as an argument and every argument has a base.

·        This base consists of certain terms and sentences whose meaning should be accepted unquestionably.

·        While the successive arguments in a theory can be questioned, one cannot raise doubts on these basic terms and sentences technically called the premises and postulates respectively.

·        Postulates can also be the quintessential assumptions made in the beginning of the proposal of a scientific theory.

·        A famous example of postulates in Physics is the ones made by Bohr in his structure of an atom.

·        He postulates that no electron neither gains or loses energy when it is orbiting its stationary state.

·        Emission or absorption of energy takes place only when there is a change in states.

·        Also, the postulates of  Einstein regarding the speed of light constancy and the laws of Physics in inertial frame are also profound in nature.

·        But, postulates can be proposed as per one’s whims and fancies as they are verified for being the reality or not using experiments.

·        The claims and predictions made by a scientific theory based on certain postulates are tested in the laboratory.

·        The verification of these claims and predictions in turn provides an authentication and acknowledgment to the postulates forwarded.

·        The facts are undeniable statements of reality which are accepted universally beyond doubts.

·        They can be based on direct observations or known through empirical evidence.