theory
IPA: θˈɪri
noun
- A description of an event or system that is considered to be accurate.
- (sciences) A coherent statement or set of ideas that explains observed facts or phenomena and correctly predicts new facts or phenomena not previously observed, or which sets out the laws and principles of something known or observed; a hypothesis confirmed by observation, experiment etc.
- (uncountable) The underlying principles or methods of a given technical skill, art etc., as opposed to its practice.
- (mathematics) A field of study attempting to exhaustively describe a particular class of constructs.
- A hypothesis or conjecture.
- (countable, logic) A set of axioms together with all statements derivable from them; or, a set of statements which are deductively closed. Equivalently, a formal language plus a set of axioms (from which can then be derived theorems). The statements may be required to all be bound (i.e., to have no free variables).
- (obsolete) Mental conception; reflection, consideration.
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Examples of "theory" in Sentences
- But _your_ theory is _theory_ in the worst sense of the word.
- This theory, it should be remembered, is _merely a theory_, _a mere notion_, _a hypothesis_.
- Thermodynamic laws are unified with mechanical theory through an *application of information theory*.
- It is also a theory and when people understand how sciences use the term theory, which is more important than facts.
- Anyway, I wasn’t comparing EW theory or QCD to string theory; I was comparing * gauge theory*, in complete generality, to string theory.
- I must be a dinosaur too--maybe even more of one, because I have a similar problem even with articles that purport to be about a piece of literature but are really about theory--and only use literature to prove the *theory* correct.
- Any of these doubters like to say that evolution is “only a theory,” not realizing that, in science, the term theory has a very specific meaning and implies a large amount of supporting evidence as you recently explained in your column.
- I didn’t say an assumption was a theory; I guess someone who can read “Anomaly is simply defined as a period of more than 50 yr of sustained warmth, wetness or dryness, within the stipulated interval ” as meaning ‘warmth, whether wet or dry’ and EXCLUDING consideration of moisture, can also read “The assumption of invariant conditions is a falsifiable assumption embedded within dendrochronological **theory**,” as meaning that ‘assumption’ is synonymous with ‘theory.’
- Now that we have sufficient evidence from the authorities that carbonic acid can be retained in the blood by excessive breathing, and enough to seriously affect the brain, and what its effects are when taken directly into the lungs in excess, we can enter upon what I have held as the most reasonable theory of the phenomenon produced by rapid breathing for analgesic purposes; which _theory_ was not _first_ conceived and the process made to yield to it, but the phenomenon was long observed, and from the repetition of the effects and their close relationship to that of carbonic acid on the economy, with the many experiments performed upon myself, I am convinced that what I shall now state will be found to substantiate my discovery.
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