Question

A chemist observes that a large molecule reacts as if it were much smaller. The chemist proposes that the molecule is folded in a way that causes it to react differently than expected and develops a series of experiments to test that proposition. How would the chemist's proposition be classified?

Answer 1

Answer:

Hypothesis

Explanation:

The following steps are applicable when we wish to prove a specific fact:

• a hypothesis is made; this is a statement that we provide after some observations and we wish to either prove or deny it;
• multiple experiments are carried out in order to gather significantly substantial amount of data that can be then further analyzed and any tendencies can be noticed;
• based on the data gathered, conclusions are made: we either prove or deny the hypothesis. If hypothesis is proved, it may become a theory over long time.

In the context of this problem, we're at the first step where we make a hypothesis.