Everyday in our life, we will learn something new either we realize or not. We gain the knowledge through our own experiences as well as other people’s experiences. From those experiences, we learn which are right or wrong. When we get the knowledge, how can we recognise when we have made progress in the search for knowledge? This essay will be discussed two areas of knowledge, Arts and Natural Science. This essay will discuss how Natural Science and Arts made progress in the context of Scientist and Artists themselves as well as in the context of a knower in the public.
Yes, we can recognise that we have made progress in some areas of knowledge if we can first measure the expansion of the knowledge. We measure the expansion of the new knowledge by comparing it with the present knowledge.
In Natural Science, we measure the expansion of the new knowledge by comparing it with the present knowledge. If the new knowledge has more benefit compare to the present knowledge, we consider we have made progress in this area. We can say that we recognise we have made progress in the search for knowledge because we can see the benefit of the new knowledge.
Here, we take an example of X-ray. Wilhelm Roentgen was the one who found X-ray accidently. He did not know what kind of ray was it, so, he called it X-ray. This was the new knowledge that he discovered at that time. The other scientists made further research about X-ray. They compare X-ray (new knowledge) with the present knowledge, which is light because they found that X-ray is one form of light. Therefore, they compare the properties of X-ray with the properties of light. Then, the benefit of X-ray was determined. One of them is X-ray have high penetrating power. Other researches were made, now, the X-ray is used in medical field. We use X-ray to see the structure of the bones in the body. Besides, X-ray made progress as it is used not only in medical field