The processes of scientific discovery : the strategy of experimentation

Abstract: "This paper is part of a program of research aimed at understanding the processes of scientific discovery by constructing computer programs that are capable of making discoveries and that simulate, at a grosser or finer level of approximation, the paths that have been followed by distinguished scientists on their roads to important discoveries. The present investigation is made possible by the existence of a detailed historical study of a particular scientific discovery: Hans Krebs' elucidation of the chemical paths for synthesis of urea in the liver (Holmes, 1979). The system, Kekada, which we have built does not, of course, capture the full detail of the actual historical process; but it does represent a serious attempt to describe both the knowledge and the heuristics that Krebs used in his research."