This is something I’ve been wondering about for some time. Is it possible that some laws of physics are straight-up wrong, and can be disproved as our understanding/technology improves? How concrete are the laws of physics? Is it possible for us to be absolutely certain about anything?
In: Physics
Yes – it is absolutely possible to prove something held as a scientific law to be wrong. Today’s scientific laws are the product of doing exactly that for thousands of years.
Back in the 4th century BC, the Greek philosopher Aristotle stated that falling objects accelerated at a rate directionally proportional to their weight. He “proved” this assertion by using a thought experiment – the idea of dropping a cannonball and a feather from the top of a tower. Everyone knew how differently feathers and cannonballs fell, so his statement went unchallenged for hundreds of years, and everyone just accepted it to be true.
In the 6th century AD, the Egyptian philsopher Philoponus put this thought experiment to the test, but instead of using a feather and a cannonball, he used two dense weights, one twice as heavy as the other. If Aristotle’s assertion was correct, the lighter of two would take twice as long to hit the ground. When he actually did the experiment, the two weights hit the ground at almost the same time – the lighter one did take longer, but only slightly. Philoponus later made a quite profound comment in regards to his disproving Aristotle:
>Our view may be completely corroborated by actual observation more effectively than by any sort of verbal argument
And that’s pretty much how science has worked ever since – it’s not enough to simply have an idea that makes sense, you have to be able to prove it experimentally.
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