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The future of the UK seems perpetually in peril. As Andrew Marr argues in this month’s cover story, nothing is inevitable about Scotland’s breakaway, but London’s complacence is making it more likely. Also in this issue: Jill Rutter explores how we’re coping outside the single market, Eliane Glaser has been horrified by the education jargon being foisted on her children during her time homeschooling, and Miranda France gives her verdict on the new Kazuo Ishiguro.

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Essays Magazine Science & Technology string theory

What happens when we can’t test scientific theories?

The limits of knowledge

By Frank Close  
May 21, 2015
June 2015

Multiverse theory posits "a kaleidoscope... of myriad universes"

Read AC Grayling unpacking the philosophy behind experimentation

If a scientific theory is elegant, and is consistent with known facts, does it need to be tested by experiment? Scientific knowledge is supposed to be empirical: to be accepted as scientific, a theory must be falsifiable—that is, it must be possible, at least in principle, to empirically disprove it. This argument was advanced in 1934 by Karl Popper, the philosopher, and is generally…

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Frank Close

Frank Close is professor of physics at the University of Oxford

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