IV. Supplement Text: scientific imagination

Our science makes terrific demands on the imagination. The degree of imagination that is required is much more extreme than that required for some of the ancient ideas. The modern ideas are much harder to imagine. We use a lot of tools, though. We use mathematical equations and rules, and make a lot of pictures.

The whole question of imagination in science is often misunderstood by people in other disciplines. They try to test our imagination in the following way. They say, "Here is a picture of some people in a situation. What do you imagine will happen next?" When we say, "I can’t imagine", they may think we have a weak imagination. They overlook the fact that whatever we are allowed to imagine in science must be consistent with everything else we know: that the electric fields and the waves we talk about are not just some happy thoughts which we are free to make as we wish, but ideas which must be consistent with all the laws of physics we know. We can't allow ourselves to seriously imagine things which are obviously in contradiction to the known laws of nature. And so our kind of imagination is quite a difficult game.

One has to have the imagination to think of something that has never been heard of before, never bean seen before. At the same time the thoughts are restricted in a strait jacket, so to speak, limited by the conditions that come from our knowledge of the way nature really is. The problem of creating something which is new, but which is consistent with everything which has been seen before, is one of extreme difficulty.

Answer the following questions on the text.

1. What should scientific imagination be based upon?

2. Why is it difficult to imagine things in science?

3. What is scientific imagination according to the text?

4. When does scientific imagination stimulate research?

5. When is it useless or even harmful?

6. What do you think of the future of physics (chemistry, welding, etc.)?

7. Along what lines will it develop?

Opening phrases.

1. I shall start by describing ...

2. To begin with, one can say...

3. It shall be noted (mentioned, observed, emphasized, pointed out) that ...

4. It is evident (obvious, unlikely, doubtful) that...

5. I think (believe, suggest) that ...

6. What I mean (want) to say (to show, to express, to prove, to emphasize) is that…

7. What I (we) find in fact is that ...

8. The problem is the following.

9. As far as I can judge ...

10. As far as I know ...

11. As far as I remember…

12. In my opinion ...

13. From my point of view…

14. To my knowledge…

15. To my mind…

16. For all I know…

17. If I am not mistaken…

18. To tell the truth…

19. I am interested to know why...

20. I'd like to know ...

21. I have no idea…

22. It seems clear ( possible, obvious, surprising, unexpected, doubtful) that ...

23. As a matter of fact.

List of questions.

1. Do you work at your thesis?

2. Are you a post-graduate or a research student?

3. When did you take your post-graduate courses?

4. What year are you in? (What year student are you?)

5. What examinations have you already passed?

6. Who is your scientific adviser? (Under whom do you work?)

7. What is the subject of your thesis?

8. Have you already published any articles? Where and when did you publish them? Are you going to publish any more?

9. What are you going to prove in the course of your research?

10. Is there much or little material published on the subject of your investigation?

11. What is of particular interest in your work?

12. What is the purpose of your paper?

13. Have you ever attended a scientific symposium (congress, conference)? What problem was it devoted to? When and where was it held?

14. Where do you work? How long have you bean working there? What is your speciality? What laboratory do you work at? In what field do you carry on your investigation? How is your laboratory equipped? Have you any big installations in your laboratory and what are they?

15. Are you a theoretician or an experimentator? (Are you doing theoretical or experimental work?)

16. What do you investigate?

17. Do you work in a team or have you an individual topic? (Do you work alone or in collaboration with your colleagues?)

18. What methods do you use in your work? Do you develop (work out) various methods? How do you collect the data? What do you usually do when the experiment is over? What do you do with the data obtained?

19. Is it difficult to analyze the results?

20. Do the data obtained enable you to come to important conclusions?

21. Can you claim that the problem you studied is solved?

22. When are you supposed to read your thesis?

23. What part of your dissertation have you already completed?

24. When are you going to publish your abstracts?

25. What scientific degree will you get?

26. How does your supervisor follow your work?

27. Have you obtained all the necessary data?

28. Where can the results of your research be used in future?