Laws, theories, and the passage of time
Date: Tuesday, February 05, 2008 @ 20:16:43 UTC
Topic: Science
From Physics Today.org/Letters:
I found the Letters Department discussion
of laws versus theories (PHYSICS TODAY, July 2007, page 8) quite interesting. I have observed that
Boyle's law, Ampère's law, Faraday's law, conservation laws, Newton's laws, and the laws
of thermodynamics all precede the Industrial Revolution, whereas relativity theory, evolutionary
theory, quantum theory, and such all follow it.
The term "law" seems to have fallen out of favor after
the Industrial Revolution. I cannot attribute this observation to any cause; perhaps others can.
Harold Metcalf
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, New
York
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