Laws, theories, and the passage of time
DOI: 10.1063/1.2883892
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.
More about the authors
Harold Metcalf, 1(hmetcalf@notes.cc.sunysb.edu) Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York, US .
