Principles and Platitudes

Abstract

One thing we noted in the last chapter was how the label “law of nature” is applied to several quite different types of statement. Boyle’s law is a straightforward law of nature. So is Snell’s law. Snell’s law, however, involves a theoretical term—“light ray.” Boyle’s law requires no such term. The laws of motion and of electromagnetics and thermodynamics are laws of nature, too, and they are riddled with theoretical terms, being less like formal summaries of what we observe and more like the axioms of a calculus. Thus, we are versatile in our use of the expression “law of nature.”