Discoveries, at their most basic, are simply observations of things in the universe. However, most of the things in the universe (or at least our little corner of it) which can be observed without any equipment have already been observed. That's why so much science is done in labs, because you need equipment to look at things no one else has before, be it the very small or the very distant or the very cold or the very hot etc.
Galileo made use of a basic telescope. To build such a thing you need a basic understanding of optics, to grasp how varying lens shape and the gaps between lenses varies the image you see. While you can do it with trial and error without writing any maths down you're still understanding it on a quantitative level. Another example is Faraday. He was a brilliant experimentalist but he was still forming a quantitative understanding of electromagnetism such as if you move a wire in a magnetic field twice as fast you generate twice the current. Even a "If I do this more then more of that happens" is mathematical in nature.
All technology is based on such quantitative understandings. We know if we arrange silicon in a particular way it makes a programmable microchip. We know if we cycle certain gases through pressurised systems we get cooling systems found in fridges. We know if we heat certain chemicals over certain metals we can make compounds like ammonia (for fertiliser and bombs) or fuels like methane (through cracking). Its all based on the quantitative knowledge of how certain things behave and without that quantitative knowledge you can't do all the things technology does.
Suppose you wanted to built a car engine and you know that if you burn petrol it gives off hot gases. Given only that information can you build a combustion engine? Nope. You need to know how hot, how mch gas, if the cylinder is a given size how much pressure is caused, how strong is the metal you make the engine from.
The short version of all this I like to use is that notion that science isn't just being able to say "If you throw a ball in the air it will come down" but also being able to say when it comes down, where it comes down and how fast it moves when it lands.
You need mathematics to understand general relativity, which describes varying space-time configurations. You need mathematics to understand doppler shift effects on the light seen by telescopes. You need mathematics to understand the light emissions from supernova, which involves everything from fluid mechanics through to nuclear physics (all of which you need mathematics to understand). You need mathematics to then do a statistical analysis on the observations to demonstrate that the doppler effects are time varying in a specific way which implies, via general relativity, an expanding universe.
There's a difference between someone telling you a conclusion of science and you being able to do that science yourself. I know aspirin takes away a headache but that doesn't make me a doctor.
Hi, Alpha Numeric. So nice of you to respond to my post the way you did. Are you a Mathematician?
Of course, Math is handy, in Science. But I happen to know you can do anything with Math and that Math, however much you may not like this, is not a Science. I'm not even sure Math is the language of Science - what about Research?
I prefer to go by comparisons, and the laws of Physics. For example, there is no such thing as an outward expansion that accelerates, certainly not one that accelerates
ad infinitum.
Nobody can see the Universe. How, therefore, do they know it's expanding? It's the Observable Universe that's expanding, which is exactly what one would expect if we were falling into a Black Hole.
In addition, in 1998, it was discovered that the expansion was speeding up. Again, just what you'd expect if we were F. I a B. H.
There is only Gravity. All the rest was made up - in my opinion, by Religious Fundamentalists, who believe every word in the Bible is God's word. They seek to have a Cosmology that agrees with the Bible.
We have all been 'juiced' in this Big Bang that never happened. The Big Bang can be explained by very complex Math, but Science prefers the simpler explaination, I'm sure you will agree.
Lex Parsimoniae, the law of Succinctness, is on my side.
Gravity brought together a cloud of hydrogen that was the Universe. At the center, pressures and temperatures caused this part to evolve fastest, and here Black Holes first appeared.
The outside of the cloud we call the 'Isometric Background Radiation,' - warm protons (not photons) which made up the early Hydrogen atoms, and which still seems not to have noticed the evolution at the center.
With your Big Bang, Dark Energy and Gravity as well, you have too many entities. In order to make your big bang work, you have to make Gravity into some annoying embarrassment - when Gravity is as Newton told us - is Universal.
Gravity causes the moon to orbit Earth, for the Earth to orbit the Sun etc. etc. Where does Gravity run out? It doesn't. Gravity causes the Universe to unfold - not anti-gravity. I'm surprised you need me to tell you this. Gravity is all there ever was - all there ever will be.
Gallileo was arrested by the Inquisition. Darwin, who said humans evolved only slowly, was derided by Religious Fundamentalists, and because I say the Universe was not created
instantly, but evolved over trillions of years these same Religious Fundamentalists block me.
Look, planets come from the exploded cores of ancient dying stars. Earth, they say is five billion years old - in a Universe that is ony 13 Billion years old. My Math tells me 13 minus 5 equals 8.
In a mere 8 billion years, a star was born, grew old, died and exploded. And you expect me to believe this?
No thanks. The Universe is truly ancient, several trillion years old. It wasn't created instantly, it evolved.
Nice talking to you, Alpha Numeric. Hope you can seee my point of view.