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Thought experiment

In physics and other fields, a thought experiment (from the German Gedankenexperiment) is an attempt to solve a problem using the power of human imagination. These experiments are used to attempt to understand something about the universe. There are many famous thought experiments from the nineteenth and especially the twentieth century, but the practice goes back at least as far as Galileo.

Famous thought experiments include:

Table of contents
1 Physics
2 Philosophy
3 Miscellaneous

Physics

Philosophy

Miscellaneous

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/thought-experiment/