Talk:Laws of science

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Contents 1 laws and theories 2 Page move query 3 What about biological laws? 4 Question on einsteins laws

[edit] laws and theories

Theories CANNOT become laws because laws are general statements about nature. That is why gravity's principles is a law, while gravity itself is a theory. I will fix this. -intranetusa

_{Subscript text}How about, "Thou shalt not fudge the data"?

Hmm, isn't computer simulation and modelling an institutionalized form of fudging?

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(Sorry for my bad English!) Would it be posible to distinguish between "real" laws, ie those which may be used as "axiom" by well-established subfields of physics, and "theorems"?

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" "law" differs from those as hypotheses, theories, postulates, and principles, etc., in that a law is a general statement about nature that is considered proven beyond doubt." Corrected it, taking out theories of the statement. Not the way it should be corrected, but better than leaving people thinking theories might not reflect truth.

[edit] Page move query

I suggest we move this page (List of laws in science) to: Laws of science. Any objections? --Sadi Carnot 09:40, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

It's moved. --Sadi Carnot 14:12, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] What about biological laws?

They are not laws of science? Laws of nature? Mendel's laws? Hardy-Weinberg principle? --Filll 18:49, 16 December 2006 (UTC)

Universal laws apply anywhere in the universe; earth-related genetic mutation laws, for example, might not apply in other parts of the universe. --Sadi Carnot 01:10, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

Lots of things we call laws might not apply everywhere in the universe and for all time.--Filll 01:11, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I guess you could classify this page as the "laws of hard science". --Sadi Carnot 21:52, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Question on einsteins laws

I thought they were theories but that newtons general law of gravitation was the law that the theory of einsteins general relativity was based on and so i thought it would be consider a theory.

Relativity is based on the idea that the laws of physics are of the same form in every reference frame, which actually leads mathematically to Einsteins formula for gravitation. It is not based on Newton's equation, although at low energies the two formulas are pretty much the same. Newton's law has been found to not always hold in certain situations and so no longer is a law in that sense, although the idea of universal gravitation is still a law, but you must use Einstein's formula to describe it if it is to be valid everywhere. Roy Brumback 05:23, 24 March 2007 (UTC)