Inference and its role in NS (General)

by romansh , Saturday, January 15, 2011, 02:47 (4871 days ago) @ xeno6696

I can't remember who said/intimated, that a scientific Law and Theory are synonymous it's just that a Law can said in pithy statement. These have lots of evidence to support statements, have stood the test of time and even remain Laws and theories when evidence has been found to show them as inacurate - eg Newton's Laws.
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> Law and Theory are not synonymous. A law must have a mathematical description attached; the law of gravity on earth (9.8m/s) or Boyle's law. 
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> Theory is an explanation that has been well tested and is agreed to fit the data. Evolution is a theory and not a law for precisely the reasons stated above.-Well I did, in part, have my tongue in cheek when I said they were synonymous. But of course if your definition is more accurate than mine fair enough. My tongue is again firmly in cheek.-But I do understand, if we don't know how explain a law in mathematical terms, it must be a theory.-Law of gravity on Earth? Come now. Newton's law does not explicitly mention acceleration, and please - as a physicist please get your units correct. Otherwise it may lead me to question your authority on definitions. (Tongue again firmly in cheek).
>Newton's law of universal gravitation states that every massive particle in the universe attracts every other massive particle with a force which is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them.-xeno I'm not sure I understand the statement below.
>My response to Romansh here is similar.-rom