---
title: "Scientific theory"
chunk: 7/7
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_theory"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T03:45:49.802572+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

A theory is something other than myself. It may be set out on paper as a system of rules, and it is the more truly a theory the more completely it can be put down in such terms. Mathematical theory reaches the highest perfection in this respect. But even a geographical map fully embodies in itself a set of strict rules for finding one's way through a region of otherwise uncharted experience. Indeed, all theory may be regarded as a kind of map extended over space and time.
A scientific theory can also be thought of as a book that captures the fundamental information about the world, a book that must be researched, written, and shared. In 1623, Galileo Galilei wrote:

Philosophy [i.e. physics] is written in this grand book—I mean the universe—which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot be understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering around in a dark labyrinth.
The book metaphor could also be applied in the following passage, by the contemporary philosopher of science Ian Hacking:

I myself prefer an Argentine fantasy. God did not write a Book of Nature of the sort that the old Europeans imagined. He wrote a Borgesian library, each book of which is as brief as possible, yet each book of which is inconsistent with every other. No book is redundant. For every book there is some humanly accessible bit of Nature such that that book, and no other, makes possible the comprehension, prediction and influencing of what is going on...Leibniz said that God chose a world which maximized the variety of phenomena while choosing the simplest laws. Exactly so: but the best way to maximize phenomena and have simplest laws is to have the laws inconsistent with each other, each applying to this or that but none applying to all.

== In physics ==
In physics, the term theory is generally used for a mathematical framework—derived from a small set of basic postulates (usually symmetries—like equality of locations in space or in time, or identity of electrons, etc.)—that is capable of producing experimental predictions for a given category of physical systems. A good example is classical electromagnetism, which encompasses results derived from gauge symmetry (sometimes called gauge invariance) in a form of a few equations called Maxwell's equations. The specific mathematical aspects of classical electromagnetic theory are termed "laws of electromagnetism", reflecting the level of consistent and reproducible evidence that supports them. Within electromagnetic theory generally, there are numerous hypotheses about how electromagnetism applies to specific situations. Many of these hypotheses are already considered to be adequately tested, with new ones always in the making and perhaps untested. An example of the latter might be the radiation reaction force. As of 2009, its effects on the periodic motion of charges are detectable in synchrotrons, but only as averaged effects over time. Some researchers are now considering experiments that could observe these effects at the instantaneous level (i.e. not averaged over time).

== Examples ==
Note that many fields of inquiry do not have specific named theories, e.g. developmental biology. Scientific knowledge outside a named theory can still have a high level of certainty, depending on the amount of evidence supporting it. Also note that since theories draw evidence from many fields, the categorization is not absolute.

Biology: cell theory, theory of evolution (modern evolutionary synthesis), abiogenesis, germ theory, particulate inheritance theory, dual inheritance theory, Young–Helmholtz theory, opponent process, cohesion-tension theory
Chemistry: collision theory, kinetic theory of gases, Lewis theory, molecular theory, molecular orbital theory, transition state theory, valence bond theory
Physics: atomic theory, Big Bang theory, Dynamo theory, perturbation theory, theory of relativity (successor to classical mechanics), quantum field theory
Earth science: Climate change theory (from climatology), plate tectonics theory (from geology), theories of the origin of the Moon, theories for the Moon illusion
Astronomy: Stellar evolution, solar nebular model, stellar nucleosynthesis

== Explanatory notes ==

== References ==

== Further reading ==
Sellers, Piers (17 August 2016). "Space, Climate Change, and the Real Meaning of Theory". The New Yorker. Retrieved 18 August 2016. Essay by a British/American meteorologist and NASA astronaut on anthopogenic global warming and "theory".