What is a law in science?

A scientific law describes an observed phenomenon. It doesn't explain what causes the phenomenon. A scientific theory is the explanation for a phenomenon. Theories turn into laws with enough research.

"Laws are a starting place in science," said Peter Coppinger, an associate professor of biology and biomedical engineering at the Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in India. Scientists can ask the questions, 'Why and how'.
There is a difference between a scientific theory and a scientific law.

If scientists find evidence that supports a hypothesis, it is upgraded to a theory, and if the theory is found to be correct, it is upgraded to a law. That isn't how it works. The scientific method includes facts, theories, laws and hypotheses. They aren't upgraded to something else because they may evolve.

Hypotheses, theories and laws are just like apples, oranges and kumquats, no matter how much water orfertilized it is, according to the University of California, Berkeley. A hypothesis is a potential explanation of a narrow phenomenon while a scientific theory is an in-depth explanation that applies to a wide range of phenomena. A law is a statement about something.

According to Live Science, there are four major concepts in science.
Scientific laws and theories are supported by a large body of empirical evidence that is accepted by the majority of scientists within that area of scientific study, but they are not the same thing.

"Laws are descriptions of natural phenomena, for example, the Law of Gravity or the Law of Independent Assortment." The laws describe the observation. "Not how or why they work."

The law of gravity was discovered in the 17th century. The law describes how the universe interacts with each other. Newton's law doesn't explain how gravity works. Scientists began to understand gravity after Albert Einstein developed the theory of Relativity.
A pea model shows inheritance. The image is from Shutterstock.

The centuries-old law ofNewton's law can be used to land a robot on Mars. It doesn't explain how gravity works. The law of independent assortment describes how different traits are passed from parent to offspring. The genes that appeared in different offspring were not the same. "He didn't know anything about chromosomes or DNA." The biochemical explanation of Mendel's laws was discovered a century later. The Law of Independent Assortment was explained by scientists such as T.H. Morgan. This is the accepted explanation for the law.

The definition of the difference between scientific laws and scientific facts is important. One-off observations that have been shown to be true are the facts. Laws are observations about a relationship between two or more things in the natural world based on a variety of facts and empirical evidence.
"Apples fall down from this apple tree" is considered a fact because it is a simple statement that can be proven. The law states that the strength of gravity between two objects depends on their mass and distance from each other. The implications of the law would change if the circumstance changed. The Earth and apple would behave differently if they were smaller.

There are scientific laws and mathematics.

The image is from Shutterstock.

Many scientific laws can be boiled down to a formula. The Law of Universal Gravitation was written byNewton.
Fg is the number of m and d.

The force of gravity is Fg, the universal gravity constant is G, the mass of the two objects is m1, and the distance between them is d.

Scientific laws are often governed by mathematics. The probability always works with large numbers. Sylvia Wassertheil-Smoller is a professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. There is always a trade-off between precision and certainty when calculating the probability of an event. The confidence interval is when you feel confident. We can be certain that what we are trying to estimate lies within a certain range or we can be certain that it lies in a wider range. We must accept that there is a trade-off.

Do laws change?

It doesn't mean that an idea can't be changed through scientific research in the future. Scientists and laymen use different words for "law". Most people mean something when they say something about a law. A scientific law is more flexible. It can have exceptions, be proven wrong, or evolve over time according to the University of California, Berkeley.

A good scientist always asks the question, "How can I show myself wrong?" The person said that. Continuous testing and observations have weakened the Law of Gravity and the Law of Independent Assortment. There are exceptions found. When looking at the quantum level, the Law of Gravity breaks down. The Law of Independent Assortment breaks down when a trait is linked to another.

There are examples of scientific laws.

The law says that the total energy in an isolated system remains constant. According to Britannica, energy cannot be created or destroyed.
The relationship between heat and other forms of energy is dealt with in the laws of thermodynamics.
According to the University of Winnipeg, the universal law of gravitation states that any two objects exert a force on each other.
Neta A. Bahcall said that Hubble's law of cosmic expansion defines a relationship between a galaxy's distance and how fast it's moving away from us.
The weight of the fluid displaced by that object is equal to the weight of the object submerged in it.

There are additional resources.

There is a bibliography.

The University of California, Berkeley has a teaching guide on "misconceptions about science".

The NASA IMAGE Education Center has a teacher's guide.
The Ohio State University has a lecture on "The Apple and the Moon:Newtonian Gravity".
"Conservation of energy" is in the Encyclopedia Britannica. On November 16, 2021,britannica.com/science/conservation-of-energy
"Newton's Law of Gravitation" was published in 1997 by the University of WINNIPEG.
Neta A. Bahcall wrote "Hubble's Law and the Expanding Universe" in the March 2015 issue of the National Academy of Sciences.