What's the point of making a hypothesis before experimenting?

Answer 1

Textbooks tell you that the scientific method involves formulating a hypothesis, and then doing an experiment to test whether the hypothesis is consistent with the result.

In reality, things are not so simple or so boring. A scientist decides some phenomenon is worth studying, and does some experiments to obtain background knowledge. It is only later on in the game that it is possible to formulate hypotheses clearly enough for them to be directly accessible by experiment.

Answer 2

You can base the hypothesis solely on observations of unexplained phenomena. Your hypothesis might make predictions which could then be tested experimentally.

Answer 3

well, a hyphothesis is an educated guess. and it is helpful b/c it makes you think of what the result could be and if it's not right you could experiment more to find out y.