• Question: why is science so complicated

    Asked by horsesrule123 to Hywel, Joseph, Poonam on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Dr Hywel Jones

      Dr Hywel Jones answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Well many things in life are complicated. The trick in science is to break things down to their simplest parts in order to try and understand them and then build the bigger picture up from these small simple parts. However, even these simple parts can be quiet tricky and that’s why we specialise in a particular parts of science so we can work on just those parts to understand how they work.
      Complicated can also be beautiful and elegant and solving a complex problem can be so rewarding that its worth the effort.

    • Photo: Joseph Cook

      Joseph Cook answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Science is as complicated as you want it to be. For every set of observations, there are different levels of detail for the analysis that you can run, but usually it’s not necessary to go to the underlying physics. You need to find the right detail for the system you are looking at, whatever that may be.

      Science can be very complicated because people have now studied it for hundreds of years and have built up an understanding of the underlying processes for most things we are likely to encounter. Science wouldn’t have seemed so complicated many years ago when it was described in a much simpler but less accurate way.

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