The fascinating collection of scientific effects

A good speaker spares no expense, just like a seducer, a writer or a cook. What about an engineer or an entrepreneur? For those who know their "rhetoric", the set of effects they can exploit gives them an immense advantage with which they can improvise to achieve their goal... Those who know causes can create effects.

The hard way

When water is swirled in a bowl, a vortex is created. It's a phenomenon; you can cause it if you know the causes. If we know them really well, we can predict vortices on any scale: tornadoes, storms, hurricanes, galaxies.

There are hundreds of known effects - the Pygmalion effect, the Stockholm effect, the Doppler effect, the Cherenkov effect, the Coriolis effect - all of which you've heard of, even if you don't necessarily know the principle behind them.

On Wikipedia's "Effects" page, you'll find an impressive list, especially in the physical sciences. Some of these effects have long been observed, such as magnetism, and stimulated human curiosity until their laws were understood.

Other effects were sought and found through logical deduction, confirming the reality of a theory such as quantum mechanics and the Casimir effect: if quantum mechanics exist, two plates separated in a vacuum will necessarily attract each other by a factor much greater than their gravitational attraction of mass, because the closer they are, all photons whose wavelength is greater than the distance between the plates will not be able to exist between them, creating a pressure that will cause the plates to stick together. This is observed within the predicted parameters.

Finally, for certain effects, such as the Allais effect or the Mpemba effect, we're still at the stage of conjecture, whereas for many others, we're able to calculate and predict them, even if we don't really understand the relationships that cause them. They remain a challenge to explain.

Softness

In subjective fields such as marketing, cinema, the helping relationship or even our relationship with machines, several effects have been observed and experienced objectively enough for some not to hesitate to use them: the halo effect, the Koulechov effect, the Dumbo effect or the Eliza effect are even amusing, as are the placebo and nocebo effects.

In the scientific register, all these effects and many others deserve to be considered when assessing the rigor of research. So many biases can be introduced, we might as well be more aware of them.

In the economic sphere, even if certain "effects" are merely names for hypothesized phenomena(Pigou, Balassa), others are veritable modes of economic employment. The network effect, the fashion effect and the leverage effect all deserve to be taught to all entrepreneurs.

The collection of effects

Understood effects are condensed chunks of practical knowledge. A very interesting collection: Effects, on Wikipedia.

Illustration: Marisha - ShutterStock