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Well history shows that the laws of physics change as time goes by.
I'm confident alot of our physics laws that have been said to be absolute will be proven wrong eventually.
After all if we knew everything about physics already we would not still be stuck on this planet.
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Doesn't the "Law" part complete the idea? If I remember right Law is higher order than theory and such... been a while though and the physics I enjoy most... well...
Law sums it up I think.
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There are many astronomical observations that agree with those statements. Things like spectra of stars, observed motion of stars within a galaxy and many other observations point to that being true. Those are only observations not experiments
The vast majority of all experiments have been done at the surface of the Earth, and the most distant experiments from Earth have all been done with unmanned probes, and all of them within our tiny solar system.
The current set of laws for describing the universe has gone from a hand crafted assembly or C++ application to the bloated enterprisy conglomeration of VB modules that is the standard model. Everyone wants there to be something simpler, nobody knows what it is, but perhaps finding it has to do with questioning assumptions like those.
I can imagine the sinking feeling one would have after ordering my book,
only to find a laughably ridiculous theory with demented logic once the book arrives - Mark McCutcheon
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I wish people would stop alluding to the van Nistelrooy goal against Italy; the section quoted is clearly discussing the offside law.
Andy Brummer wrote: Everyone wants there to be something simpler, nobody knows what it is, but perhaps finding it has to do with questioning assumptions like those.
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Rich Leyshon wrote: 1) The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe
We have no reason the believe otherwise.
Rich Leyshon wrote: 2) The laws of physics do not change
My belief is that they do not. However, there are many special cases where established and accepted theories/laws are proven inadequate.
Rich Leyshon wrote: Does anyone have any proof of either of these statements or are they assumptions?
This really hits at the heart of Special and General Relativity and why Einstein wanted to call it the "Theory of Invariance." I could go on at length because I used to teach Special and General Relativity and love the topics. One could say that the Einstein's entire opus was built upon absolutism and that he dreaded the term "Theory of Relativity."
Do a google search on "Theory of Invariance + Einstein" and see what people much smarter than me have written about it.
Sovereign ingredient for a happy marriage: Pay cash or do without. Interest charges not only eat up a household budget; awareness of debt eats up domestic felicity. --Lazarus Long
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Chris Austin wrote: here are many special cases where established and accepted theories/laws are proven inadequate
Aren't most of those cases 'incapable of predicting', versus 'contradictory results'? Plank scale / uncertainty / divide by zero kinds of issues?
Silver member by constant and unflinching longevity.
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well, this is true.
think of it this way: the universe works the way it does and it's true everywhere the universe works.
but the real question is, do we know the law of physics?
you can tell it an other way: the law of mathematic don't change.
but does our description of the universe is mathematically accurate?
A train station is where the train stops. A bus station is where the bus stops. On my desk, I have a work station....
_________________________________________________________
My programs never have bugs, they just develop random features.
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These are simplifying assumptions - an application of Occam's Razor. However, any phycisist worth his salt would love to find that the laws of physics change over very large distances or over large time scales. Physics would become difficult, scarey but VERY interesting.
Would this be any different than giving the kiss of life to Schrodinger's cat?
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I'll be ..... I just threw out my physics, astronomy and cosmology library and bought a bunch of bibles! And everyone: the Universe was not created by the Big Bing. It took just 7 days for everything to be created and all started on 23rd October 4004BC. I wonder if they had all necessary development permits!
"Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? ... No other human institution comes close. " - Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World.
No trees were killed in the creation of this message. However, many electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
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iangrech wrote: I'll be ..... I just threw out my physics, astronomy and cosmology library and bought a bunch of bibles! And everyone: the Universe was not created by the Big Bing.
There was a theory that Bing Crosby created the universe?
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Heard that one too. But when he came to establish time it kept Rockin'round the clock.
No trees were killed in the creation of this message. However, many electrons were terribly inconvenienced.
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iangrech wrote: "Think of how many religions attempt to validate themselves with prophecy. Think of how many people rely on these prophecies, however vague, however unfulfilled, to support or prop up their beliefs. Yet has there ever been a religion with the prophetic accuracy and reliability of science? ... No other human institution comes close. " - Carl Sagan, The Demon Haunted World.
Hmmm, someone obviously never read the book of Daniel (for starters).
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If they had done a proper resource requirements study, we would not have an energy problem today!
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I knew someone would respond with an intelligent comment like this!
News flash: Not every Christian has the Medieval, anti-science mindset that you're describing (though, sadly, too many do!)... On the contrary, some of us actually have enough smarts to understand that if God created the Universe then the Universe must reflect this fact. And if the Bible really is the inspired Word of God, then science and the Bible must line up. The anti-Big Bang and 7-day-creation theology comes from a gross misinterpretation of the creation account in Genesis. The word for "day" there is "yom" (as in Yom Kippur, etc.), and, while sometimes indicating a 24-hour period, can also mean "eon" or "era". We have this usage of "day" in the English language as well, as in "back in my day" or "the day of the dinosaur"...
So, yes, the Big Bang did occur, and many billions of years ago. For something to be created, it has to have a beginning (as in the Big Bang), and this in turn indicates a cause. The Bible tells us that God said, "Let there be light", and the light has been penetrating the darkness ever since. Amazing that Moses (who penned Genesis) could know about the Big Bang and the continuing expansion of the Universe so many thousands of years before the science of cosmology began!
The reference I cited is from an organization called "Reasons to Believe" that believes in the 100% validity of the Bible and the 100% validity of science. You should check them out: http://www.reasons.org/[^]
P.S. To paraphrase Sagan: Think of how many scientists attempt to validate themselves with only science that they can personally comprehend. Sagan was great at marveling over the graspable Universe around him, but didn't try too much to ponder what's beyond this. The Big Bang proves that there is a transcendent realm (doesn't it?). Einstein, in his later years, brought embarrassment to his scientific career, the most distinguished in history, by rejecting quantum physics, essentially because he couldn't personally grasp it... Love both these guys, and how human of us all to need to define all of reality according to our own tiny little contexts...
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Just read an interesting article...
"Would an anti-matter apple fall upwards?"
Try Google it - It's quite interesting...
-= Reelix =-
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as einstein put it - god isn't playing dice.
1. universe is running under definite laws.
2. we know them in part. it is our limitation not of laws.
3. they seem to change only when our understanding changes (maybe improves).
4. there is no variation in laws is in iteself a proof.
manoj sharma
09313603665
manoj.great@yahoo.com
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Rich Leyshon wrote: Yer cannae change the laws of physics, Jim!
See the problem with this statement is that although it is attempting to effect a Scottish accent it is in fact written using the rules of a non-rhotic accent which the majority of the English speaking world does not use, including Scotland.
 Just thought you'd like to know. 
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I like to think of them as guidelines 
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1. The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe
If you have an apple falling from a tree, you would be able to calculate the time it reaches earth by using Newton's famous equation.
However, if the tree is sank under the water the equation would seem wrong. That's because we didn't considered all the other forces present, or, the equation was not complex enough (e.g. for the case we need to consider the relativistic effects).
Generally, there is always a broader context that covers all facts, so you will be able to precisely calculate the apple falling under the water.
The statement "The laws of physics are the same, everywhere in the universe." would be equivalent to "All that is, is what it is", which would be true.
2. The laws of physics do not change
This is acctually the same question as the first. ...so they both are true
Alex C. D.
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things change.nothing is constant..
even laws would change overtime - to make way for change..
people change..attitudes change..governments change..the world will change..
and laws will change..
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Of course the laws of Physics vary - ask any politian!
Actually 'laws’ is sort of a misnomer, they are not laws, they are actually observations/interpretations made on how things interact. Once you look at them from that perspective there should be no surprises if they do alter or that we have got it completely wrong. After all Newtonian physics once explained most things .... (except for the price of apples).
Even if we do get to a unified theory of everything, how can we be sure that it’s only another view point! Even with a proven unified theory, it still begs the ultimate question how did these laws come to be, probably a question that can never be answered. Even those in the Religious domain come up against similar theological problems, except they can leave it to their chosen God to ponder such questions!
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And not forgetting things like:
Inflation - which requires the speed of light to have been very much higher during the very early universe (within about 10E-12s of the big bang), or for general relativity to have not held then.
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Easy by definition:
In physics, if it changes with the location or over time, it is not a law.
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist
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Unless of course the law states that there will be a change, and in turn can define the change in mathematical terms...
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