See also: Experiment (homonymy)

From a theoretical point of view very , a experiment is an engagement in a Situation of testing period of an element of a speculative nature , often called Hypothèse when it fits in a logical Système. This situation and this engagement are not always sought, it arrives thus that one speaks about mystical Expérience when a Révélation order Spirituel occurs. On the contrary, in the scientific disciplines , the experiments are described as scientific because they are led by respecting Protocole S as rigorous as possible, relating to as well the planning and the concrete setting-in-work of the experimental situation, than the collection of the data (often by means of Measuring instruments) or theoretical interpretation that it is made by it.

Because of this speculative element, the experiment comprises in an intrinsic way a weight of indetermination (uncertainty) more important than the other types of initiatives (actions, activities, projects, programs, etc…) who aim at a goal by reducing the dubious parameters to the minimum. There is however no clear border, and any initiative can be at least retrospectively apprehended like a didactic, formative, capitalizable experiment in itself.

The control of an experiment leads thus to two types of benefit. Initially the benefit for the central object of the experiment as regards Information S news (if the experiment were relevant), but also in all the cases, a teaching on the causes of the possible failure, teaching which will be reinvested in the definition of a more adequate experiment.

The experiments, carried out according to a precise and renewable protocol, are essential as regards progress of the Connaissance S, particularly in sciences known as exact. See Scientific experiment or technological Experiment; Experimental design; List of the scientific experiments.

From this very extensive concept, derived from the particular meanings. Thus, one names also experiment :

Theoretical structure of an experiment

From a very general point of view, the isolated experiment comprises three phases summarily: preparation; the experimentation; the evaluation; two last being the simple result by what preceded them.

A total experiment made up of experiments partially individualisables comprises the three same poles. However so in the isolated experiment the three phases constitute as many regulated stages Chronologiquement, in the total experiment, it acts of three registers which Interagissent permanently. As follows:

*L' evaluation is more or less associated with the parameters taken into account in the preparation, for example, the results question the sampling procedure;
*L' experimentation can be repeated, according to the two other phases;

The preparation is carried out around a double intention: the success of the experiment, i.e. control until its term; the relevance or success of the experiment, i.e. the access to a positive test, with regard to the initial objective.

Each intention justifying and organizing the experiment finds its limits in at least a form of uncertainty: basic uncertainty relating to the realization of the experiment is joined per as many uncertainties as there are possible choices for the initial conditions.

The preparation is thus based on prospects and operations of Anticipation; calculations of the experiment which can reduce uncertainty on such or such parameter.

The preparation leads thus to the meeting of Facteur S of effectiveness.

In the total experiment, each phase not resulting simply from the preceding one, the bonds between the initial conditions and the results are affected by a complexity which brings a new load of uncertainty.

The evaluation refers to criteria which will have been clarified in partnership with the determination of the factors of effectiveness.

The preliminary qualitative experiment

Wolfgang Köhler notes that " the physicists spent centuries to gradually replace observations direct and especially qualitative by others, indirect, but very precise ". It quotes some examples where such scientist makes a singular observation but only of a qualitative nature before this fact - once discovered - serf of base to a method evaluation quantitative of the phenomenon; these methods often concretizing itself out of measuring instruments increasingly more sophisticated.

It generalizes this historical report while posing that any news Science develops naturally by the progressive passage of the " direct experiments and qualitatives" with the " indirect experiments and quantitatives" ; those being a major characteristic of the " sciences exactes". He insists on the necessary preliminary accumulation of the primarily qualitative experiments; essential conditions of the later quantitative investigations.

It is the challenge which he proposes with the Psychologie that he regards as a " young science . He thus invites to resist the imitation of physics; not to plate the methods of a ripe science on the gropings of that which is sought and thus to support before all the growth of the essential experiments preliminary to the future rigorous quantitative experiments.

Recognizing the complexity of the object of the Psychology compared with simplifications that the Physique authorizes, it ensures after having mentioned the question of the Test S qu" one could not stress enough the importance of the qualitative Information like complement necessary of quantitative work ".

  • W. Köhler, Gestalt Psychology , 1929. French translation the psychology of the form , Gallimard, Paris, 1964. Translated by Serge Bricianer.

The typical example is that of Galileo, which discovers the movement of planets by the observation with a Telescope.

See too

Simple: Experiment

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