PHY.10:1 - Problem frame

Use this pattern when competing physical accounts remain compatible with what has been observed, and the work needs a distinction between them. The missing contribution is a physical test: a preparation, intervention or understood comparison whose recorded consequences can separate the relevant alternatives.

A resistor and a capacitor can produce identical current traces under one imposed voltage history. Changing that history can expose the difference between dissipation and storage. A decaying collective signal can also hide different individual dynamics; a suitable intervention can make those dynamics distinguishable.

The first result is a proposed physical comparison, with the response each account permits, the conditions needed to produce and read it, and what the possible outcomes would change. It can reveal that the available apparatus cannot make the wanted distinction. A performed test adds observations and an interpretation under those conditions.

You need the physical meaning and applicable laws of the accounts being compared. Mathematical, computational and experimental collaborators can supply particular derivations and implementations. B.5.TC helps align the accounts when their questions or predicted quantities still differ. PHY.9 constructs a missing measuring interaction.

Use an existing discriminating observation or sufficient comparison directly. Leave the difference unresolved when it does not change the intended use, or when acting with the remaining uncertainty is preferable to another test.