1) Given the video we watched in class, name and explain why three "respectable" scientific concepts

may be akin to the "fairy" example in the video. Recall, postulating the existence of a fairy to explain
why saltwater freezes less quickly was deemed problematic on account of "not being testable."

2) Try to think of an example in science where prejudices might creep in. Explain why you think there
might be prejudices creeping in.

There is no length requirement. Write as much as you think is necessary to answer the question.

1) After watching the video we saw in class, I have come with neutrinos, inertial mass and light as
electromagnetic radiation as three scientific concepts that may be akin to the “fairy” example in
the video. This is because these ideas are not necessarily seen directly, just as “fairy” i

Neutrinos:

- The process of scientific discovery may take much time, as was the case with the detection of
the neutrino almost 30 years after it was predicted to exist. The neutrino was predicted to exist
in order to explain loss of energy in radioactive beta decay, just as the fairy was predicted to be
performing magic on the pond to make it freeze faster than the beach. It is said in the video that
some of the reasons the fairy hypothesis is not testable is because we do not know where to
find the fairy or it has not been observed; however the neutrino was discovered when scientists
happened to find a particle which fit its description by studying particles created by a nuclear
power plant. So in a sense, ruling out the possibility of the fairy by not observing the pond for
their existence may be analogous to scientists not bothering to observe nuclear power plants
and leaving neutrinos undiscovered.

Light as Electromagnetic Radiation:

- Old ideas about light were necessary in leading to what we think of as light today,
electromagnetic radiation. One of these old ideas about light explains how all visible objects
emit packets that reach our eyes which are then perceived as vision. Eventually ideas get refined
and rebuilt and we get Maxwell who predicts the electromagnetic field and that light is a form of
electromagnetic radiation.

The next theory was provided by the brilliant Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell (1831 to 1879). In
1864, he predicted the existence of electromagnetic waves, the existence of which had not been
confirmed before that time, and out of his prediction came the concept of light being a wave, or more
specifically, a type of electromagnetic wave. Until that time, the magnetic field produced by magnets
and electric currents and the electric field generated between two parallel metal plates connected to a
charged capacitor were considered to be unrelated to one another. Maxwell changed this thinking
when, in 1861, he presented Maxwell's equations: four equations for electromagnetic theory that shows
magnetic fields and electric fields are inextricably linked. This led to the introduction of the concept of
electromagnetic waves other than visible light into light research, which had previously focused only on
visible light.