What is a testable hypothesis?

Question

What is a testable hypothesis?

Answer 1

You question is self explanatory.  Its a hypothesis you can test.  

Example:  Your hypothesis is "When I add ice to water, the water will get cooler."  You can test that by checking the temperature of the water before and after you put ice in it.

An hypothesis that you can not test would be like, "When I go faster than the speed of light, I turn invisible."  You can not go faster than the speed of light so you can not test your hypothesis

Answer 2

A testable hypothesis is one that you could perform experiments to see whether or not it's true.

Answer 3

A testable hypothesis is a statement that you can support or reject with experiments.  You can break a hypothesis down into two parts:

1) null hypothesis that there is no difference  

2) alternative hypothesis that there is a difference between two experimental treatments.  

You will reject one option and support the other through experimentation.

Example:

Hypothesis: Plants grow taller with water.

Break this statement down into two parts:

Null Hypothesis (H0):  There is no difference in plant height between plants given water and plants deprived of water.

Alternative Hypothesis (H1): There is a difference in plant height between plants given water and plants deprived of water.

Experimentation will likely show that plants given water will grow taller.  In that case, you would support your Alternative Hypothesis and reject your Null Hypothesis.