Drossell Faraday Course 19

Where do the laws of
nature come from?
http://jersey.uoregon.edu ita.uni-heidelberg.de
Outline
●
Properties of physical laws
.. using the example of classical mechanics
●
How laws are turned into a world view
.. which breaks down with the progress of science
●
More recent laws of physics
.. and their limitations
●
A few conclusions about physical laws
.. and how this fits together with belief in a personal God
July 1st, 2019 | Fachbereich Physik | Theorie komplexer Systeme | Barbara Drossel | 2
Newton's laws (1686)
1. Law of inertia: motion at constant speed

in the absence of forces
www.leifiphysik.de

2. F = ma (force = mass times acceleration)
3. Actio = Reactio
http://drychcik.wikispaces.com/

2. F = ma
3. Actio = Reactio
http://drychcik.wikispaces.com/
Universal law of gravitation
http://www.goruma.de/Wissen
Newton's laws: their incredible
success
●
Unification of Kepler's laws of planetary motion and of
Galilei's laws about falling bodies
success
●
de.wikipedia.org
success
●
science.nasa.gov
success
●
Innumerable applications then and now
Characteristics of a good
scientific theory
●
Accurateness
●
Consistency with other theories
●
Broad scope
●
Simplicity
●
Fruitfulness
According to Thomas Kuhn)

en.wikipedia.org
Properties of Newton's laws
Absolute space
Absolute time
Determinism
The wordview that was based
on Newton's laws
●
It was believed that the laws were directly obtained from nature
●
The properties of the laws were taken to be properties of nature
●
The laws were generalized to apply to all of nature
Mechanistic,
deterministic
world view
www.bistummainz.de/
Including God in the world view
When going from a view of the world to a view of everything there is:
●
Deism: God as clockmaker
●
●
Atheism/materialism: If there is no beginning in time
●
●
●
Interventionalism: God „interferes with“ the course of nature
●
●
●
Interventionalism: God „interferes with“ the course of nature
●
Non-interventionalist theism: God plans everything beforehand
Doubts about the absolute
validity of Newton's laws
Pierre Duhem (Physicist and

philosopher), 1906:
Kepler's and Newton's laws cannot

both be fully accurate
de.wikipedia.org
The end of the mechanistic
world view in the 20th century
●
Absolute space → theory of relativity
●
●
Absolute time → theory of relativity
●
●
Absolute time → theory of relativity
●
Determinism → chaos theory, quantum mechanics
On the 300th anniversary of
Newton's Principia
„We are all deeply conscious today

that the enthusiasm of our forebears for the
marvellous achievements of Newtonian
mechanics led them to make
generalizations in this area of predictability
which (...) we now recognize were false. We
collectively wish to apologize for having
misled the general educated public by
spreading ideas (...) that, after 1960, were to
be proved incorrect...” .
Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 407, 35-50 (1986)

Sir James Lighthill
Lessons learnt from the history
of Newton's laws
●
Physical laws are extremely successful
of Newton's laws
●
●
Physical laws are idealizations that are not exact
of Newton's laws
●
●
●
Limited range of applicability
of Newton's laws
●
●
●
Limited range of applicability
●
Worldviews built on a physics law might be wrong
Our 'fundamental' laws
Maxwell's
Newton's laws
equations
Schrödinger
equation
General
relativity Quantum field
theory
Maxwell's equations
en.wikipedia.org
Maxwell's equations
ht
li g
n d
a
s
m
a to
o f
u re
t
na
u m
nt
en.wikipedia.org
a
qu
Schrödinger equation
de.wikipedia.org
Schrödinger equation
n t
e
e m
u r
a s
e
m
en.wikipedia.org
General relativity
de.wikipedia.org
General relativity
n
a tio
di
ra
g
k in
a w
H
en.wikipedia.org
Quantum field theory
en.wikipedia.org
Quantum field theory turned
into a world view
Reductionist
world view:
Particles and their

interactions determine
everything that
happens in nature
Steven Weinberg
(*1933, Nobel prize 1979)
d s
t ho
e
f m
o
ix
m
A
en.wikipedia.org
It
do
es
no
ts
d s
ol
ho
ve
et
m
th
f
e
o
m
ix
ea
m
A
su
re
m
en
en.wikipedia.org
tp
ro
bl
em
The nature of physical laws –
and God's action
and God's action
●
Physical laws cannot be deduced by logic
→ contingent
→ need to do observations / experiment
and God's action
●
→ contingent
●
Physical laws are more than mere regularities
→ have explanatory power
→ shape our expectations
and God's action
●
→ contingent
●
●
Physical laws do not determine everything
→ causal openness of the world (Popper, Polkinghorne)
and God's action
●
→ contingent
●
●
Physical laws do not determine everything
→ causal openness of the world (Popper, Polkinghorne)
●
Physical laws provide no guarantee for the future
→ Problem of induction

Drossell Faraday Course 19

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Drossell Faraday Course 19

Uploaded by

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Where do the laws of

nature come from?

1. Law of inertia: motion at constant speed

1. Law of inertia: motion at constant speed

2. F = ma (force = mass times acceleration)

1. Law of inertia: motion at constant speed

Universal law of gravitation

According to Thomas Kuhn)

Pierre Duhem (Physicist and

Kepler's and Newton's laws cannot

„We are all deeply conscious today

Proc. Roy. Soc. Lond. A 407, 35-50 (1986)

Quantum field theory

Particles and their

Quantum field theory

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