noun: a tentative theory about the natural world; a concept that is not yet verified but that if true would explain certain facts or phenomena ("A scientific hypothesis that survives experimental testing becomes a scientific theory.")
noun: a proposal intended to explain certain facts or observations
noun: a message expressing an opinion based on incomplete evidence
"An hypothesis is a supposition which serves to explain phenomena. The more varied the phenomena it explains, the greater the probability of its truth. When the evidence of support of it becomes large, it is raised to the rank of a theory; and when its truth is fully established, it becomes a law or principle." [First Principles of Physics, 1912, by Henry S. Carhart, LL.D., and Horatio N. Chute, M.S., page 2]
Keely
"True philosophy, when reached, said Professor George Bush, will conduct us into the realm of the spiritual as the true region of causes, and will disclose new and unthought of relations between the world of matter and of mind.
It is these unthought of relations which Keely's system of sympathetic physics brings to light; opening out a field for research which lies beyond the boundaries of our present knowledge. As yet he has been unable to satisfy his own penetrating mind in regard to all the hypothesis which his various discoveries have led him into formulating. He has himself, in his search for truth, pursued the wrong path too often, and made too many errors, not to welcome refutation of them, and acknowledge his mistakes when brought before him.
The title which he has given to the latent current of the triune polar flow that he discovered in 1872, "polar negative attraction," undoubtedly conveys the idea that this flow is an agent closely allied to magnetism; but such is not the case.
This latent element exists in the interstitial conditions of all nature's triple streams of force; in electricity, in magnetism, in gravity; and is the dominant current in each of these, maintaining a sympathetic relation to the high or compound luminous, which manifests itself when the proper mechanical requirements are used. It is entirely foreign in character to the elements now in commercial use. Researchers will always find before them a limitless beyond, comprehended only by the Infinite One." [Veil Withdrawn]
"If matter without form preceded creation of energy, it was only when life was given that the atoms became grouped in individualities through their intrinsic properties. The hypothesis of Macvicar and demonstrations of Keely pivot on the law of assimilation "providing at once for the free and the forced ... for mind and matter, and placing them ... in relationship." This law is summarized as "Every individualized object ... assimilates itself to itself in successive moments of its existence and all objects tend to assimilate one another." In its own nature, matter is wholly plastic or devoid of fixed innate properties wholly assimilative - both with respect to its own portions and to surrounding objects, as well as its position in space and insofar as it is capable, to the mind of its Creator. In the ether are constructed groups of ethereal elements generating material elements." [Snell Manuscript - The Book, page 2]
See Also
assumption
Axiom
belief
error
length contraction hypothesis
Postulate
theorem
Theory