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Re: F=ma: law or theory?

Good grief! This seems to hearken back to the ill-formed
presumption, common among semi-literate educators, that "science"
progresses according to the sequence "hypothethesis, theory, law".
I suggest that there are no universally accepted definitions of the three
words that could make the sequence meaningful. Nor does "science" as I
see it practiced on a daily basis, seem to progress in such an easily
categorizable fashion.
Robert seems to have some sort of definitions in mind. I suggest
that by writing out his definitions, he can probably answer his own
question.
Regards,
Jack


On Tue, 16 Oct 2001, Robert Cohen wrote:

On Tuesday, October 16, 2001 12:58 PM, John S. Denker wrote:

[snip]
It is _not_ true that F is defined in terms of ma. F=ma is
_not_ an axiom nor
a tautology. To say it in more positive terms: We have an
operational
definition of force. We have an operational definition of
mass. We have
an operational definition of acceleration. In Newtonian
mechanics, the
equality between F and ma is a law, an approximate law, based
on empirical
observations. We can design experiments to test whether F
does equal ma to
some greater or lesser degree of accuracy.

I agree with the above. However, I was once informed by somebody
(two people, actually, who certainly acted as though *I* was the
misguided one) that F=ma is actually a theory, not a law. Is anyone
familiar with this alternate view who can provide the argument for it?

----------------------------------------------------------
| Robert Cohen Department of Physics |
| East Stroudsburg University |
| rcohen@po-box.esu.edu East Stroudsburg, PA 18301 |
| http://www.esu.edu/~bbq/ (570) 422-3428 |
----------------------------------------------------------


--
Franz Kafka's novels and novella's are so Kafkaesque that one has to
wonder at the enormity of coincidence required to have produced a writer
named Kafka to write them.
Greg Nagan from "The Metamorphosis" in
<The 5-MINUTE ILIAD and Other Classics>