Empirical Evidence
Theories of nucleosynthesis are tested by calculating isotope abundances and comparing with observed results. Isotope abundances are typically calculated from the transition rates between isotopes in a network. Often these calculations can be simplified as a few key reactions control the rate of other reactions.
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Famous quotes containing the words empirical and/or evidence:
“To develop an empiricist account of science is to depict it as involving a search for truth only about the empirical world, about what is actual and observable.... It must involve throughout a resolute rejection of the demand for an explanation of the regularities in the observable course of nature, by means of truths concerning a reality beyond what is actual and observable, as a demand which plays no role in the scientific enterprise.”
—Bas Van Fraassen (b. 1941)
“Faith. Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge, of things without parallel.”
—Ambrose Bierce (1842–1914)