happened, but that it was
predictedto happen. Quite a few predictions were made by people working independently as individuals or groups and using different techniques for prediction.
Science and Prediction
Science is of such great use to society because of its powers of prediction. Dmitri Mendeleev predicted the existence of eight elements - since discovered - from his observations of the systematic sets of properties of other chemical elements. The planet Neptune was discovered in 1846 when astronomers searched for a planet in a region where one was predicted to exist based on mathematical models of the Newtonian mechanics of our solar system.