Joshua Zou

Project 3613
Process Paper
I first came across the idea of the Scientific Method being an NHD project a few days
after I decided to compete. After one or two days of brainstorming, I could not come up with
something. I was in science class, however, and suddenly I wondered what life had been like
before Einstein, Newton, or even Aristotle. How did people know what was true and what was
false? I was not able to think of something, so I thought about the reasoning itself. I realized that
the Scientific Revolution was when it had started and that it would make a fabulous National
History Day project: on how Humanity finally Explored, Encountered, and Exchanged with
Reason. After a struggle with too many sources, I decided to focus on the Scientific Method
instead. I started researching this new topic and little by little, I realized I had made the right
choice, with all three puzzle pieces, Exploration, Encounter, and Exchange, fitting in the perfect
places. Meanwhile, I discovered inventions and ways of thought that had been skipped over in
school, as well as unsung heroes I had never known about. I chose to create a Website Category
project because I felt I would be able to honor these heroes more with both style and a well
written project.
My research was made up of primarily books from my local library, and then websites
and video interviews, as I started to draw from a variety of sources. I discovered my Interviewees
in searching for websites and exhibits, from where I found the professors responsible in creating
them, such as Peter Barker and Brent Purkaple, who took part in University of Oklahomas
Galileos World. I was incredibly fortunate to find such interviewees, and had almost no
trouble piecing together my project, with the surplus of sources I had to choose from.
The people who had the biggest part in making the Scientific Method, I found, were Rene
Descartes, Sir Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, and Sir Isaac Newton. These geniuses fitted
perfectly into the category of Encountering, Exploring, and Exchanging as well, by what they
achieved, and by what they impacted. I knew Descartes only from the mathematical theorems he
had created for geometry, and I had only heard of Bacon as the man who had been wrong, up
there with Tycho Brahe. Only in my research would I learn that they had shaped the Scientific
Method tremendously, setting the stage for those to come. What I had known about the latter two
would be completely blown away by what I found. I discovered that Galileo, while supporting
Heliocentric Theory, also championed the pairing of Science and Math, while Newton would
serve as both the final step in perfecting the Scientific Method with Math, as well as in spreading
the scientific method in Physics, and in his position as president of the Royal Society. In
encountering and exploring Science and Nature, these four individuals allowed us to exchange
with our surroundings.