"devise a theory" is a correct and usable phrase in written English.
You can use it when you want to describe the process of creating an idea or explanation to explain something. For example, "The scientists decided to devise a theory to explain why the ocean's temperatures had changed."
Unlike some of the more complicated efforts to devise a theory of everything, this one should either succeed relatively rapidly or fail spectacularly.
He referred to the case as one of the crucial puzzles he needed to solve when trying to devise a theory of biological inheritance.
It might be said that we first ought to find out whether the boundary conditions are lawlike, and then devise a theory of law appropriate to the answer.
However, the lessons of these experiments can be used to devise a theory of five principles needed for successful electricity market liberalization, providing policymakers and legislators with a crucial checklist to be consulted before designing such measures.
The first weather maps in the 19th century were drawn well after the fact to help devise a theory on storm systems.
The use of weather charts in a modern sense began in the middle portion of the 19th century in order to devise a theory on storm systems.
April 22, 1887 Copenhagen, Denmark January 22 , 1951Copenhagen, Denmark Harald August Bohr, (born April 22, 1887, Copenhagen, Den. died Jan . 22 1951, Copenhagen) Danish mathematician who devised a theory that concerned generalizations of functions with periodic properties, the theory of almost periodic functions.
In order to test the possibility of a universal morality, Kohlberg devised a theory for the development of moral reasoning based on stages that could be observed, or at least imagined, in humans.
In 1958 he and the American physicist Murray Gell-Mann devised a theory that accounted for most of the phenomena associated with the weak force, which is the force at work in radioactive decay.
He also devised a theory of harmony based on affinities with algebra and geometry, set forth in his Trattato di musica (1754; "Treatise on Music") and expanded into Dissertazione dei principi dell'armonia musicale (1767; "Dissertation on the Principles of Musical Harmony").
Instead of intuitively devising a theory, a researcher expects to yield one from data obtained on-site.
