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
Physicists don’t endeavor to prove their theories right, but instead try to demonstrate they can’t be proven wrong. This is a big important part about how the word “theory” diverges from pure maths and the physical sciences. In the tangible world, you can’t prove you’re right, you can only prove you’re the least wrong you can possibly be.
Our existing mathematical models of physics are the most accurate and successful they’ve ever been. And you have to appreciate the math, which makes a model, which we can only use to predict, has been refined over centuries. You have to appreciate that every refinement also incorporated every single prior observation. The only work that advances our models are those that agree with all prior observation as well as express falsifiable future prediction. Like, string theory is an elegant solution, but it doesn’t solve anything a refinement to our prior models can’t solve, and it includes these string things that are as of yet untestable. In physics, you don’t get to just do that. Strings fell out of a set of equations that made for a self-consistent model, but nothing observed had ever suggested there were strings, necessitating the model.
Throughout history, as human knowledge grew, they learned to better explain and predict the world around them. This will continue to happen as time goes on. This will likely result in the “laws of physics” changing to adapt to new discovered, but basic principles with mostly likely be unchanged. For example, we may find in the future that gravity is not what we currently think it is, and a new theory may be created to explain the effects we see. However, as has happened throughout history, the new theory would better predict the effects of gravity, but the old theory would still accurately predict the effects of gravity in most cases. Often the new theory is more complicated than the old theory, so the old theory (and math) would still continue to be used in “simpler” situations.
Yes, there could be greater laws that capture reality more accurately. Human logic and mathmatics may be insufficient.
As a general rule, nothing is 100% completely rock solid certain in science, or at least it’s not treated that way.
Scientific laws are not immutable- they’re just extensively, rigorously proven methods of defining natural phenomena of the universe. In other words, scientific laws are a way of bringing the fundamental properties of our universe down to human scale.
However, *disproving* a scientific law entirely would be monumentally unlikely, given the extremely rigorous methods that go into formulating them. It’s also not what science aims to do.
However, it’s possible that tomorrow someone makes a new earth-shattering discovery that proves an existing law *incomplete* and forces us to reevaluate/reformulate it to accommodate this new knowledge- and there are many brilliant humans around the world going to work each day trying to do just that.
Scientifically, it is possible to prove any of these things…Well, maybe not *wrong*, persay, but *inaccurate*.
Basically the whole process for scientific discovery goes like this:
Scientist 1: Hey, so I did X,Y,and Z, and [result] happened!
Other scientists: Lemme try! Hey I did the same things, and [result] happened too! You’re right!
This is how our understanding works. But then this guy can come along…
Grumpy Scientist: Yea, well, you did X,Y, and Z, and got [result], but if you do A,B,C *and* X,Y,Z, you get [more specific result], which gives us a better understanding of [result].
Other scientists: Holy crap he’s right!
So science just builds on what we know, have observed, and it will inevitably shift around *a little*, but proving things like the basic laws of physics just flat *wrong* is highly unlikely.
That’s kind of the point if science. It is to have an idea something is wrong and use the scientific method to prove it. But if your wrong that’s also good as it helps to further prove something else.
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