![]() ![]() Calling a law a fact is ambiguous, an overstatement, or an equivocation. Science distinguishes a law or theory from facts. Laws are narrower in scope than scientific theories, which may entail one or several laws. Hypotheses and postulates are not laws, since they have not been verified to the same degree, although they may lead to the formulation of laws. Laws differ from hypotheses and postulates, which are proposed during the scientific process before and during validation by experiment and observation. ![]() A scientific law may be contradicted, restricted, or extended by future observations.Ī law can often be formulated as one or several statements or equations, so that it can predict the outcome of an experiment. As with other kinds of scientific knowledge, scientific laws do not express absolute certainty, as mathematical theorems or identities do. In general, the accuracy of a law does not change when a new theory of the relevant phenomenon is worked out, but rather the scope of the law's application, since the mathematics or statement representing the law does not change. Scientific laws summarize the results of experiments or observations, usually within a certain range of application. It is generally understood that they implicitly reflect, though they do not explicitly assert, causal relationships fundamental to reality, and are discovered rather than invented. Laws are developed from data and can be further developed through mathematics in all cases they are directly or indirectly based on empirical evidence. The term law has diverse usage in many cases (approximate, accurate, broad, or narrow) across all fields of natural science ( physics, chemistry, astronomy, geoscience, biology). ![]() Scientific laws or laws of science are statements, based on repeated experiments or observations, that describe or predict a range of natural phenomena. Scientific theories explain why something happens, whereas scientific law describes what happens. ![]()
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