Talk:physical law

Creation note
I have based the definition on Wikipedia's entry, modifying it to fix certain issues. An improvement by an expert may be needed. --Daniel Polansky 15:42, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

This was the revision of the WP article in January 2008. It said:
 * "A physical law, scientific law, or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations of physical behavior."

There was no inline reference for the definition. It identified "physical law" with "scientific law" and "law of nature".

Meanwhile, Wikidata:physical law has this as law in physics, not any law of nature.

--Dan Polansky (talk) 18:35, 1 November 2022 (UTC)

RFV discussion: November 2022–February 2023
Rfv-sense: A universal statement about the operation of nature, based on empirical observations of physical behavior, tested using scientific method.

I created this sense in 2008 based on WP, which said at the time: "A physical law, scientific law, or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations of physical behavior."

I am not sure "physical law" is used as a synonym of "scientific law", so I request some form of evidence. Such use would include chemical laws under the head of "physical law", and in fact also psychological laws and sociological laws would come under the head since they come under "scientific law".

I created another sense, supported by quotations:
 * "A scientific generalization based upon empirical observation that is part of physics, standing in contrast to chemical law, biological law, sociological law, etc."

--Dan Polansky (talk) 18:43, 1 November 2022 (UTC)


 * Why is this not a transparent sum of parts: sense 2.2 +  sense 3.3?  --Lambiam 19:02, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * It is. Theknightwho (talk) 22:44, 2 November 2022 (UTC)
 * The McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Physics article (accessible in full via ) makes finer distinctions than we do. It starts with:
 * A term that designates four different concepts: (1) objective pattern (or natural regularity), (2) formula purporting to represent an objective pattern, (3) law-based rule (or uniform procedure), and (4) principle concerning any of the preceding.
 * Given the source, all of those are in the context of physics, but the entry in said encyclopedia raises the possibility that the term is not SoP. Our definition 3.3 does not transparently make it SoP either. DCDuring (talk) 15:32, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Great find; thanks. My concern is not so much with SOP but rather: is "physical law" ever used to cover chemical and biological laws? If not, then the sense I nominated should be deleted and only the sense I added should be kept. If yes, the 2nd definition should be made more explicit about covering chemical and biological laws. The sense I added may well be SOP, but it helps clarity. Such an arguably SOP entry prevents such things as our law of nature being defined as "physical law". Dictionaries seem to think that "physical law" is not worth it, but I think there is so much ambiguity in physical that it pays off to document which uses "physical law" sees and which it does not. The possible confusion is confirmed by the translation table in physical law, which contains e.g. German Naturgesetz, which is not "physikalisches Gesetz" in the narrow sense. And the table contains Swedish naturlag. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:59, 3 November 2022 (UTC)
 * Fairly easy to cite, even without resort to religious-type writings with more or less metaphorical usage. DCDuring (talk) 16:41, 3 November 2022 (UTC)

RFV Passed. Ioaxxere (talk) 21:25, 21 February 2023 (UTC)