Law

Who/what defined the objective laws?
Or are they evolved

Why are there galaxies .. instead of a homogenous cloud?

If the observable universe is relies on random chance.
How did beings come to be that can philosophically use their
cognitive ability to question their own ability to question?

Deconstruction will gain much understanding.
But none about purpose and premis

And these are the things humanity is made of.

Occam

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_law
subject to changes in understanding, of course.
I believe physical laws are there to show cranks that they are nuts

so anyone who disputes that
The buoyant force is equal to the weight of the displaced fluid.
is thrown into a "wicker basket making factory" with other "wierdo " scientists because if you dont accept that principle its like saying the earth is flat ! which is only true if the earth is flat, but it isnt, so they bring out a nload of wicker canes for them to play with!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archimedes%E2%80%99_principle

 

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So the physical/objective laws are accurate as far as the interested minority understand them?
Thats You...
[95% dont give a damn. The 1 in 20 rule. Its the one in twenty that have
taken us from grubbing for tubers to Burger King and 100 teraflop MPP ]

Occam

 

Depends on the 'Law'. Some laws are approximations to deeper theories. But still called a law because they provide a very good approximation at considerably less work, Newtons laws are a good example here. We still use Newtons laws for most everyday applications simply because relativity or QM is far more complex for little extra gain in everyday life.

Also when using laws we have to remember that they are often simply a statement to stop us having to understand something deeper when there is no point. When working out if something will float you don't want to have to go back to the fundamentals of fluid dynamics so the laws of buoyancy work just as well.

Finally some laws are as far as we know fundamental, we just don't know what they are yet. Although we can say something about what such laws must include.

 

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F_T

No point? Speak for yourself.

Occam

 

I dont mean its not worth it at all. I just mean that 30-40 years worth of theory may produce a law that someone can use, theres no point reinventing the wheel. Unless your an undergrad in which case thats pretty much the point.

 

How do scientists know which universal law applies to a problem is there an organisation where you can refer to all the known universal laws?
scientists cant know all the universal laws and what about new ones that get made? How do scientists come to agree that something is a universal law?
Is there some way that knowledge gets transmitted to known scientists?

 

There are very few universal laws. Mostly its a question of knowing which laws apply to which situation. For most every day situations we use the laws of Newtonian mechanics. But once you start dealing with the very heavy or the very fast then u need relativity. When you deal with the very small you use Quantum Mechanics and when you deal with the very small and very fast you use relativistic quantum mechanics. When you deal with the very small and very heavy you use quantum gravity unfortunately this doesn't exist yet. So actually the biggest question in cosmology isnt, what goes on inside a black hole, its why some people seem to think they know.

 

Hah.
Laws are just labels applied to forces we don't understand, but have observed to work in the same way for what is a relatively insignifigant span of time.
We know how gravity works, but not why. We can't prove it won't spontaenously stop working or won't start working differently tomorrow.
Yet it's a 'law'.

 

But there isnt a why involved is there? It merely exists.
We can know how it works but not why because there isnt a why.
The simple fact is that gravity exists as a consequence of bodies having mass. There doesnt need to be a why asked there because thats just the way it is. Its a universal law because it applies to everything that exists.
And the reason for that is because everything that exists has mass

 

Tony

Exactly why occam posted this thread.
Concepts come to the fore over detail.

Agree with your statement 100%

Occam

 

Do you mean that studying other peoples theories and mathematics is bigger than studying the phenomena itself in cosmology?
I would assume here that you are saying people at the cutting edge of theoretical science and mathematics are there because they are credible but their work is contraversial

 

I was probably being a little hard on cosmologists. We can say a fair bit about the outer parts of black holes fro General relativity. But as the gravitational potential increases the the field varies substantially over the length of particle wavefunctions in this regime a quantum description of gravity is required. Or at least I think thats it, im not a Cosmologist. I guess that point is pretty far into a black hole though, there must be a Cosmologist around here somewhere.

 

Tony

Not one that has left earth or even seen a accretion disk.
All are arbitary theoretical constructs.

Yes, singularities to occam 'feel right'. But what idiot will claim he knows what exists below the event horizon.
The horizon and the disk are a thing that will burn our brains for centuries.
99.99 % of humanity cannot conceptualise spaghittification.
Actually a simple thing.
What does that say of human understanding.

Occam

 

Its true that we can't directly image accretion discs and more or less by definition can't image inside event horizons. We do have good astronomical evidence for something along the lines of a black hole. I'm pretty happy that something along the lines of a black hole exists and are at the centre of most galaxies. Its a question of what happens deep in a black hole. There was stuff recently about if you take a more quantum mechanical approach to black holes then you dont get a singularity so who knows. I think its an example of where until we have the right theory theres a limit to how much use the theory is.

 

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Shaggie

Why do you want WIMPS
[weakly interacting massive particles]
to exist?

Do you believe that reality will end if the observable universe 'runs down'
[instead of being cyclic]
lol
The observable universe is one trillionth of reality

Far better we find ways of escaping our situation by slipping sideways out of this entropy trap. Thats why we got brains laddie.

Occam