The English word hypothesis comes from the ancient Greek word ὑπόθεσις hypothesis whose literal or etymological sense is "putting or placing under" and hence in extended use has many other meanings including "supposition". In its ancient usage, hypothesis referred to a summary of the plot of a classical drama. The adjective hypothetical, meaning "having the nature of a hypothesis", or "being assumed to exist as an immediate consequence of a hypothesis", can refer to any of these meanings of the term "hypothesis". P is the assumption in a (possibly counterfactual) What If question. Ī different meaning of the term hypothesis is used in formal logic, to denote the antecedent of a proposition thus in the proposition "If P, then Q", P denotes the hypothesis (or antecedent) Q can be called a consequent. A working hypothesis is a provisionally accepted hypothesis proposed for further research in a process beginning with an educated guess or thought. Even though the words "hypothesis" and " theory" are often used interchangeably, a scientific hypothesis is not the same as a scientific theory. Scientists generally base scientific hypotheses on previous observations that cannot satisfactorily be explained with the available scientific theories. For a hypothesis to be a scientific hypothesis, the scientific method requires that one can test it. The hypothesis of Andreas Cellarius, showing the planetary motions in eccentric and epicyclical orbits.Ī hypothesis (plural hypotheses) is a proposed explanation for a phenomenon.
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