HOW SCIENCE DEVELOPS --- Episode 3

                   NORMAL SCIENCE and PUZZLE SOLVING 

    Normal science is just working away at a few puzzles that are left open in a current field of knowledge. Puzzle-solving makes us think of crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles, and sudoko, pleasant ways to keep busy when one is not up to useful work. Is normal science like that ?
   A lot of scientific readers were shocked, but then had to admit that is how it is in much of their daily work. Research problems do not aim to produce  real novelty. If you look at any research journal, you will find three types of problems addressed : [1] determination of significant facts, [2] matching of facts with theory, and [3] articulation of theory. To expand slightly : 

   1. Theory leaves certain quantities of phenomena inadequately described and only qualitatively tells us what to expect. Measurement and other procedures determine the facts more precisely.  

   2. Known observations don't quite tally with theory. What'swrong ? Tidy up the theory or show that the experimental data were defective. 

   3. The theory may have a solid mathematical formulation, but one is not yet able to comprehend its consequences. Some give the apt name of articulation to the process of bringing out what is implicit in the theory, often by mathematical analysis. 

   Since the 1980s there has been a substantial movement in emphasis, with historians, psychologists, sociologists, and philosophers attending seriously to experimental science.  As Peter Galison wrote, there are three parallel but largely independent traditions of research : theoretical, experimental, and instrumental.  Each is essential to the other two, but they have a good deal of autonomy : Each has a life of its own. Immense experimental or instrumental novelty novelty is simply missed in some history writer's theoretical stance, so normal science may have a good deal of novelty, just not theoretical. And for the general public, which wants technologies and cures, the novelties for which science is admired are usually not theoretical at all. 
   For a current illustration of what is absolutely right, and also of what is questionable, notice that the high-energy physics most widely reported by science journalists is the search for the Higgs particle. This involves an incredible treasury of both money and talent,all of which is dedicated to confirming what present physics teaches --- that there is an undetected particle that plays an essential role in the very existence of matter. Innumerable puzzles, ranging from mathematics to engineering, must be solved en route. In one sense, nothing new in the way of theory or even phenomena is anticipated. Normal science does not aim at novelty. But novelty can emerge from confirmation of theories already held. Indeed it is hoped that when the right conditions for eliciting the particle are finally established, an entire new generation of high-energy physics will begin.