Laws As Definitions
Some "scientific laws" appear to be mathematical definitions (e.g., Newton's Second law F = dp⁄dt, or the uncertainty principle, or the principle of least action, or causality). While these "scientific laws" explain what our senses perceive, they are still empirical and, thus, they are not "mathematical" facts. (Reference to a "law" often suggests a "fact", although "facts" do not exist scientifically a priori.)
Read more about this topic: Physical Law
Famous quotes containing the words laws and/or definitions:
“The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature—were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“What I do not like about our definitions of genius is that there is in them nothing of the day of judgment, nothing of resounding through eternity and nothing of the footsteps of the Almighty.”
—G.C. (Georg Christoph)