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Even Newton's laws had exceptions, i.e. general relativity. No theory in physics is perfect, and neither are the theories in this article (they're just a lot l
by dadkins 16y ago
Even Newton's laws had exceptions, i.e. general relativity. No theory in physics is perfect, and neither are the theories in this article (they're just a lot less perfect). The usefulness of laws is in their simplicity and their predictive power.
- Jach 16y agoIf ever there was or will be a time when special relativity was or will be violated, I will be extraordinarily surprised. Newton's law wasn't fundamental, it was just a law, while special relativity may be the most fundamental law we have considering it manifests itself in everything. That's the difference between a mere law and a fundamental law.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- davidmathers 16y agoTheories aren't laws. Laws are observations. Gravity is a theory: why do balls fall to the ground when you throw them? Gravitation is a law: balls fall to the ground when you throw them. Relativity isn't an exception to Newton's law, it's just more accurate. An exception would be a ball not falling to ground after you threw it in the air.
- tel 16y agoThere are precious few Laws like that. Gravity, Constant Proportions, Thermodynamics, etc. While they're taught as a separate, somehow more powerful thing than theory, really they cannot exist without a theoretical framework. Entropy and enthalpy don't exist outside of theory, gravity "always follows the inverse square law" under current beliefs about gravity and theoretical assumptions (when are there ever truly only two interacting bodies?) I prefer to think of laws as statistical correlations that are so repeatable that their variance has gone to zero. These are words that only have meaning in context of a model though. They're embedded in theory, necessarily wrong theory.
- gnaritas 16y agoLaws are just what scientists called what they thought were fundamental theories back in their more arrogant days; they've since matured and no longer promote any theory to law because they know they're probably wrong. Newtons laws are theories just as Einsteins theories are just like Newtons laws. If Newton invented his laws today, we'd call them theories, not laws.
- jules 16y agoNo theory is known to be perfect, but it can very well happen that we have perfect laws of physics in the future.
- Dn_Ab 16y agoI prefer to look at general relativity not as exceptions to Newtons Laws but rather, Newton's Laws as a special limiting case of the more general theory of relativity. So I posit a theory: For any given theory, there are areas outside its boundaries where it breaks down and can say nothing or only nonsense but that doesn't make it wrong (which need not be binary) - so long as it is contained in a more general and more accurate theory. We can then only measure its correctness based on how well it predicts within its domain and then how well it folds into the future more general theory.