Relativity - Oh dear, here we go again!

But don't take my word for it! In his closing remarks, John W. Carroll says
How can philosophy advance beyond the current disputes about laws of nature? Three issues are especially pressing ones. The first concerns whether laws “govern” the universe, exactly what it means to say that they do, and how that affects our understanding of lawhood. The second is the issue of whether there are any contingent laws of nature. Necessitarians continue to work feverishly on filling in their view, while Humeans and others pay relatively little attention to what they are up to; new work needs to explain the source of the underlying commitments that divide these camps and to figure what each group is doing right. Finally, more attention needs to be paid to the language used to report what are the laws and the language used to express the laws themselves. It is clear that recent disputes about generalizations in physics and the special sciences turn on precisely these matters, but exploring them may also pay dividends on central matters regarding ontology, realism vs. antirealism, and supervenience.
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http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/laws-of-nature/

Norman Swartz has a lot about Laws of Nature vs. Laws of Science, as well as an extensive reference list here
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/l/lawofnat.htm#H1

It's telling that the Wiki entries on the matter don't cite definitive sources. Leading to the issue of using Wiki as a source for definitions, of scientific matters.
 
robinson said:
I had some nuts trying to tell me there are no laws of physics, that no theory is ever proved, and the reason scientist still use terms like laws or principles is because they didn't know any better way back when.

I'm not kidding. They also confused theory, which isn't hard. It has at least seven different meanings, and sometimes is used instead of hypothesis, further clouding the quantum interactions.
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LOL @ "some nuts". That would be me, and some of the other people here (like Sol Invictus and Ziggurat) who are actively participating in this thread and obviously have a much deeper understanding of physics than you will ever have.
 
I wasn't going to mention any names. ;)

As before, I asked you to supply sources, rather than your own authority. Wiki certainly needs some citations. Every Physics textbook I have, as well as science websites uses terms that disagree with you, but agree with each other.

I linked to both Nobel prizes awarded for the discovery/creation of Laws, as well as a list of Laws that are used all the time. So when somebody tries to say there are no Laws of Physics, I tend to laugh about it.
 
ynot said:
So you’re saying that a thing that has no width, length or breadth can have actual, factual, real existence?
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Absolutely, and I can prove it. I can give you mathematically consistent theories which reproduce everything we've ever observed (except gravity) in which the constituents are point particles.* Those particles carry energy and momentum, electric charge, etc. The fact that you find that hard to imagine isn't a particularly compelling argument against it.

In other words, nothing is something?
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How does that follow from the first statement?


*One should bear in mind that in quantum theories there is always some uncertainty in the position of a particle. However modern theories of particle physics are the quantized versions of classical theories describing real point particles, and their interactions are precisely local (i.e. take place at a spacetime point).
 
robinson said:
I linked to both Nobel prizes awarded for the discovery/creation of Laws, as well as a list of Laws that are used all the time. So when somebody tries to say there are no Laws of Physics, I tend to laugh about it.
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Do you now admit that the inverse square "law" and Newton's "law" of gravity are approximate descriptions of nature which have been supplanted by more exact theories?

If yes, please define what you mean by "law of nature", and give an example.

If no, there's no point in dialog (considering the evidence for that we've already provided you with).
 
It's funny how you always use that word "funny", robinson.
Come on, come clean, you are a comedian, right?
I mean, it's really sad if you are not.
 
robinson said:
You have provided no evidence at all. That is the funny part.
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Quotes from a book by Einstein, quotes from other books on general relativity, links to physics websites, an explanation for how the inverse square law is modified by the curvature of spacetime, etc. etc.

So which is it - yes or no?
 
robinson said:
I linked to both Nobel prizes awarded for the discovery/creation of Laws, as well as a list of Laws that are used all the time. So when somebody tries to say there are no Laws of Physics, I tend to laugh about it.
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No one here said that the word "law" has never been used, or that it's wrong to use it, so that was the most pointless thing you've done so far. It was even more pointless than the crazy googleing. Seriously, did you really think you could prove us wrong by listing a bunch of people whose names are associated with a law, or were you just trolling?

Shadron and Ziggurat explained very well what a law is in physics. I can't give you a reference to an original article that defined "law" the way they did, because I have no idea if there is one. I'm guessing there isn't. That usage has probably just evolved over time.

No physics books I have read (and I have read many) have defined the concepts "theory" and "law", but they have used those words the way we have described. They all seem to assume that we already know the definition, or will figure it out while we're reading.
 
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Fredrik said:
But wouldn't it be easier to evaluate Christianity if you actually knew what the bible says? You seem determined to evaluate relativity without learning anything about it.
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Knowledge doesn’t mean acceptance. I didn’t say I don’t know the bible, I said I don’t accept that what it says is valid. In fact I know the bible better than most theists I meet. Unfortunately I can’t make the same claim in regard to relativity/physics, but these are somewhat more complicated than the bible. Having had an educationally sterile upbringing (lots of love though) and a pathetic education, doesn‘t give me a good base to start from. Unfortunately my busy business and social life doesn’t leave me with much time to improve my knowledge of relativity/physics but I think I have a reasonable understanding in a broad sense. I know “a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing“, but you can only go with what you’ve got, and make the effort to get more of course.
 
Fredrik said:
The word "electron" only has an exact definition in the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which is just an approximate description of some aspects of reality. (Extremely accurate, but still approximate). So in a way it makes sense to say that its existence is theoretical. (The theoretical electron is well-defined but exists only in the theory. The real electron obviously exists, but we can't define exactly what a real electron is, so when we say that "it" exists, it's not entirely clear what the word "it" refers to).
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Great explanation - thanks

Fredrik said:
You could of course say the same thing about anything, so if electrons don't have an actual existence, then nothing else does either (except your own thoughts I suppose).
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Everything is a figment of my imagination except my imagination?
Fredrik said:
Physicists understand that, so when they get a question about a real electron, they either give you an approximate answer about a real electron, or an exact answer about a theoretical electron. You will never get an exact answer about a real electron, at least not until someone finds a complete theory of everything, and I don't think that's ever going to happen.
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We know physical things exist because they have dimensional substance that we can observe. Non-physical things that don’t have dimensional substance apparently exist because we can observe their effects when they interact with physical things. We can’t observe (and therefore prove) that non-physical things exist when they aren’t interacting with physical things, but I guess it’s reasonable to assume they do. Existence doesn’t require observation, but observation requires physical existence.

Unfortunately I don’t have time right now to go further and I will be travelling for the next few days so won‘t get much if any forum time.
 
ynot said:
Non-physical things that don’t have dimensional substance apparently exist because we can observe their effects when they interact with physical things.
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What do you mean by a "non-physical thing" which interacts with physical things? You seem to have developed a nonsensical terminology all your own.
 
ynot said:
Everything is a figment of my imagination except my imagination?
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It's worse than that.
You are a figment of your brain's imagination.
(Except, of course, that it is not your brain - that's putting the cart before the horse.)
 
BillyJoe said:
It's funny how you always use that word "funny", robinson.
Come on, come clean, you are a comedian, right?
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Let me guess, you have "show avatars" set to "off", right?

Fredrik said:
Shadron and Ziggurat explained very well what a law is in physics. I can't give you a reference to an original article that defined "law" the way they did, because I have no idea if there is one. I'm guessing there isn't. That usage has probably just evolved over time.
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So you don't know what Law means, in regards to science. And you don't know why it is used. Interesting.

Fredrik said:
No physics books I have read (and I have read many) have defined the concepts "theory" and "law", but they have used those words the way we have described. They all seem to assume that we already know the definition, or will figure it out while we're reading.
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No, what Law, theory and hypothesis mean are taught early on. Not in advanced courses.
 
Ziggurat said:
Laws are concise statements of relationships, usually in the form of single equations. They are not distinct from theory because they are better understood or more correct, but because they are more compact.
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False. If you want to define Laws and Theory, please use a valid source, don't just make stuff up.
 
robinson said:
False. If you want to define Laws and Theory, please use a valid source, don't just make stuff up.
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:rolleyes:
What I said was correct. Name me a single law of physics which is not expressible as an equation. Then name me a single physics theory which is.
 
No, you provide a single source that supports your definition. Then we can see why I laugh.


To be fair, I should tell you it isn't really you, it is the entire issue. As I linked to, several times, here and in another thread, the controversy over Laws and definitions is old and deep. The funniest part was when somebody claimed believing in Laws of Physics was the path to woo. That really made my day.
 
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Here, let me help. Show us where your definitions are supported by credible sources.

Ziggurat said:
Laws are concise statements of relationships, usually in the form of single equations. They are not distinct from theory because they are better understood or more correct, but because they are more compact.
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See?
 
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