3 ms·

If you can break it then it wasn't really a law.

by jpablo 17y ago

jacquesm 17y ago
Exactly. People seem to take this 'law' business much too serious, we are discovering nature, we deduce the laws, and when our deductions are imperfect nature teaches us by showing instances of laws being broken. Relativistic effects break classical mechanics, but only because of previous imperfect understanding. It all boils down to available evidence, as long as there is no evidence to the contrary a law is considered 'solid', less perfect but still practically usable even if there is a better one. When computing how long it will take an elevator to crash in to the basement of a building you won't need relativistic effects accounted for. You probably don't have time for that anyway ;)
vinutheraj 17y ago
"The first source of difficulty is this – that it is imperative in science to doubt; it is absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature. To make progress in understanding we must remain modest and allow that we do not know. Nothing is certain or proved beyond all doubt. You investigate for curiosity, because it is unknown, not because you know the answer. And as you develop more information in the sciences, it is not that you are finding out the truth, but that you are finding out that this or that is more or less likely. That is, if we investigate further, we find that the statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but statements of what is known to different degrees of certainty: "It is very much more likely that so and so is true than that it is not true;" or "such and such is almost certain but there is still a little bit of doubt;" or – at the other extreme – "well, we really don't know." Every one of the concepts of science is on a scale graduated somewhere between, but at neither end of, absolute falsity or absolute truth." - Richard P. Feynman
flipper 17y ago
Unfortunately that's the price paid for getting an interesting piece of science news into the main stream media - neither the journalist who wrote the article or his sub-editor probably have much grasp of what science is for so a hyperbolic but misleading headline is the order of the day.
dandelany 17y ago
True, but thinking of it as a "broken law" can be helpful in some situations. Relativity and Newtonian physics contradict each other at relativistic speeds, but it can be useful to think of these speeds as situations which "break" Newtonian laws and require the use of alternate laws rather than throwing out Newtonian laws entirely. F=MA is still considered "Newton's Second Law" regardless of the fact that it does not hold true in all situations. Granted, this is a subtlety that scientists grasp easily, and laymen do not, so this article probably gave the wrong idea to many people who read it.
grinich 17y ago
A scientific law has a slightly different meaning than the colloquial connotation. The difference is subtle, but important: A law differs from a scientific theory in that it does not posit a mechanism or explanation of phenomena: it is merely a distillation of the results of repeated observation. As such, a law is limited in applicability to circumstances resembling those already observed, and is often found to be false when extrapolated. (via Wikipedia: Scientific Law) One example is that "Hooke's law only applies to strain below the elastic limit." As another, the laws of classical mechanics break down on the Plank scale. This doesn't mean that classical mechanics is false; it simply means that the law is not applicable under some states. Laws do not explain why something happens and usually break under extreme extrapolation, such as this experiment.

If you can break it then it wasn't really a law.

by jpablo 17y ago

If you can break it then it wasn't really a law.

Exactly. People seem to take this 'law' business much too serious, we are discovering nature, we deduce the laws, and when our deductions are imperfect nature teaches us by showing instances of laws being broken. Relativistic effects break classical mechanics, but only because of previous imperfect understanding. It all boils down to available evidence, as long as there is no evidence to the contrary a law is considered 'solid', less perfect but still practically usable even if there is a better one. When computing how long it will take an elevator to crash in to the basement of a building you won't need relativistic effects accounted for. You probably don't have time for that anyway ;)

vinutheraj 17y ago

"The first source of difficulty is this – that it is imperative in science to doubt; it is absolutely necessary, for progress in science, to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature. To make progress in understanding we must remain modest and allow that we do not know. Nothing is certain or proved beyond all doubt. You investigate for curiosity, because it is unknown, not because you know the answer. And as you develop more information in the sciences, it is not that you are finding out the truth, but that you are finding out that this or that is more or less likely. That is, if we investigate further, we find that the statements of science are not of what is true and what is not true, but statements of what is known to different degrees of certainty: "It is very much more likely that so and so is true than that it is not true;" or "such and such is almost certain but there is still a little bit of doubt;" or – at the other extreme – "well, we really don't know." Every one of the concepts of science is on a scale graduated somewhere between, but at neither end of, absolute falsity or absolute truth." - Richard P. Feynman

flipper 17y ago

Unfortunately that's the price paid for getting an interesting piece of science news into the main stream media - neither the journalist who wrote the article or his sub-editor probably have much grasp of what science is for so a hyperbolic but misleading headline is the order of the day.

dandelany 17y ago

True, but thinking of it as a "broken law" can be helpful in some situations. Relativity and Newtonian physics contradict each other at relativistic speeds, but it can be useful to think of these speeds as situations which "break" Newtonian laws and require the use of alternate laws rather than throwing out Newtonian laws entirely. F=MA is still considered "Newton's Second Law" regardless of the fact that it does not hold true in all situations. Granted, this is a subtlety that scientists grasp easily, and laymen do not, so this article probably gave the wrong idea to many people who read it.

grinich 17y ago

A scientific law has a slightly different meaning than the colloquial connotation. The difference is subtle, but important: A law differs from a scientific theory in that it does not posit a mechanism or explanation of phenomena: it is merely a distillation of the results of repeated observation. As such, a law is limited in applicability to circumstances resembling those already observed, and is often found to be false when extrapolated. (via Wikipedia: Scientific Law) One example is that "Hooke's law only applies to strain below the elastic limit." As another, the laws of classical mechanics break down on the Plank scale. This doesn't mean that classical mechanics is false; it simply means that the law is not applicable under some states. Laws do not explain why something happens and usually break under extreme extrapolation, such as this experiment.