Hindu devotees light oil lamps during the Diwali festival, on the banks of the river Yamuna in the northern Indian city of Allahabad on November 6, 2014. Diwali, also known as Deepawali, is the five-day Indian festival of lights celebrated by Hindus, Sikhs, Jains and Buddhists around the world. While the holiday is observed by people of different faiths for different reasons, they all acknowledge its underlying theme: the victory of good over evil and the triumph of light over darkness.
Instance. Specific: Hypothesis is usually based on a very specific observation and is limited to that instance. General: A theory is the establishment of a general principle through multiple tests and experiments, and this principle may apply to various specific instances.
In the vernacular, or in everyday speech used by most people, the world theory refers to that which has yet to be proven as fact. In science the term for such is a hypothesis. But in scientific terms, according to the principles of the scientific theory, nothing can be proven as fact, only demonstrated as working in line with an offered hypothesis.