Induction Memes

The beautiful irony here is that the question itself reveals a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. You don't need multiple experiments to disprove a theory—you need exactly one that contradicts it. Meanwhile, you could run a million confirming experiments and still not "prove" the theory true, because that's the problem of induction David Hume warned us about centuries ago. The problem of induction is basically this: just because something has happened repeatedly in the past doesn't logically guarantee it'll happen in the future. The sun rose yesterday, today, and a billion times before, but that doesn't prove it'll rise tomorrow—we just have really strong inductive reasoning to believe it will. So the answer to Q1.1? One. Just one contradictory experiment can shatter a theory. But the student asking probably expects some large number, which is why Doctor Strange here is holding up that iconic finger like "buddy, we need to talk about falsification."

David Hume really woke up one day and said "hey, you know how you think the sun will rise tomorrow because it always has? Yeah, you can't actually prove that." And scientists have been having existential crises ever since. The brutal truth is that it only takes ONE experiment to completely demolish a theory, but you could run a million successful experiments and still not prove it's universally true. You're just building confidence on a foundation of "well, it hasn't failed YET." This is the problem of induction that keeps philosophers of science up at night. We assume nature follows consistent patterns, but that assumption itself can't be proven—it's just something we kinda have to accept to do science at all. Doctor Strange here holding up one finger perfectly captures that sinking feeling when you realize your entire understanding of reality is built on observations that could theoretically be wrong tomorrow. Sleep tight!