Your Trending Science Questions Answered
Search engines are utilized billions of times each and every day, answering questions from ‘how to cook a turkey’ to ‘what is the meaning of life’. In this brand new series, I answer trending questions about a wide variety of topics. Today’s topic focuses on science and what the world’s users are currently searching for.
1. What science focuses on disease prevention?
The correct answer here is health science which is defined as the ‘science focused on preventing disease, promoting wellness, and a high quality of life.’
2. Where was science wrong?
There are many instances where science appears wrong, but what’s great is that scientists try to replicate previous experiments all the time to figure out whether it can be validated or refuted. If multiple scientists try to replicate the same experiment and come to a different result, then we know something went wrong and can advance that area further in the right direction. It could be a small detail or miscalculation that produced incorrect results.
One example is from a famous astrophysicist, Dr. Neil Degrasse Tyson, who was observing the universe from the Andes Mountains for his PhD. He was using a spectrograph (a tool to view spectra) where everything had to be precisely calibrated to provide an accurate result. A moderate earthquake occurred during his observations and shifted the platform that the spectrograph was on. He continued his observations once the earthquake stopped, but noticed some changes in the location of a star. It would have been an interesting, albeit wrong, discovery. Fortunately, Dr. Tyson realized what happened and corrected the problem. So while the science wasn’t technically wrong, an error had occurred to make it appear that way initially.
3. Will science solve climate change?
While science may be the largest component of studying climate change and how we can mitigate it’s effects, it’s actually a combination of several areas that can ultimately help solve climate change. It’s important to know that while science and technology play a huge role, the humanities can contribute as well. It’s important that the public is educated and motivated in the way that they need for maximum effectiveness — whether by literature, art, or history — and these additional avenues can help contribute to solving climate change.
4. Why is science important?
The answer for this question is simply because science improves our living standards and helps to satisfy our basic needs. This could be as small as building a refrigerator to keep food fresh longer to something as large as building rockets for interplanetary travel to help our species survive. Think about all the advancements people have made in medicine, sanitation, utilities, and many other areas that help all of us live longer.
5. Which science is easiest/hardest?
This can vary based on personal interests, but the easiest have often been labeled as biology, earth science, or psychology. The hardest are generally labeled as chemistry and physics.
6. Who is the father of science?
Galileo Galilei is labeled as the father of science. He was an astronomer, philosopher, physicist, and mathematician during the 16th and 17th centuries.
7. When has science found God?
This refers to the discovery of the ‘God particle,’ more appropriately known as the Higgs boson by physicists, which had been a theory by Peter Higgs and several other scientists in 1964 which proposed (what would be known as) the Higgs mechanism to explain why particles had mass. It took many decades and CERN’s Large Hadron Collider before it would be discovered.
8. How does science affect our lives?
It’s visually prominent to most via visible medicine and technology, but it can also affect us at the cellular level as well, most notably in regards to diseases and treatments.
9. Can science explain everything?
In a sense, yes. It may not be able to prove everything, but it can try to explain it. There may be cases where current knowledge or technology limits our ability to explain something well, but an explanation will become more in-depth with additional research and experimentation.
10. Are science and technology related?
Yes, because science is the study of the natural world via the scientific method and technology is the application of science.
It is interesting that a lot of questions seem to be focus on the various subjects of science, such as technology, environment, and health. What I found most fascinating is that a lot of users wanted to know more about the importance of science, how it has affected us, and where it may have gone wrong. These type of questions are important to teach the general public about science and to inspire future generations to pursue a STEM field.
Be sure to check back for another installment of this series and what topic I explore next. Let me know what topics interest you and your family and they might be used for a future article. Until then, stay curious!
