• Question: How do you approach and solve a scientific problem? Are there any steps to follow?

    Asked by monika97 to Arttu, Ceri, James_M, Monica, Philip on 15 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Arttu Rajantie

      Arttu Rajantie answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      It depends on the problem, of course. The main thing is that you need to identify what is relevant and what is not. Then you simplify the problem by keeping only the relevant aspects. Hopefully you can simplify it enough so that you can write down the equations that describe it and solve them (or set up and carry out a meaningful experiment).

      Usually the hardest thing is identifying what is relevant, and for that you need a good understanding of the problem. Therefore you spend most of the time thinking about small parts of the problem, trying to understand and solve them, before you can actually tackle the whole problem.

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