PHY.10:4.1 - State which physical disagreement matters

Ask the accounts the same physical question under corresponding conditions. Recover what each treats as the subject, its state, its interactions and the measured quantity. Use B.5.TC if the apparent conflict instead concerns different questions, representations or approximations.

State the consequence the work needs to distinguish. It may concern a law, an omitted interaction, stored state, a response time or another physical dependence. A distinction matters through what it changes in explanation, prediction, construction or subsequent inquiry.

Retain the parameter freedom that each account still has. An account with an adjustable coefficient is a family of possible responses, not just the curve at one fitted value. Include the available information that restricts that freedom. Do not choose a new parameter value independently at every observation unless the account itself permits that dependence.

Identify the auxiliary premises on which the comparison turns. For a driven specimen, these can include its preparation, the applied input, its coupling to surroundings and the relation between its response and the recorded indication. A test of the specimen’s law can fail because one of these premises fails.