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My textbook mentions that the universal law of gravitation cannot be proved. If so, then why is it called a 'law' and not a 'hypothesis'?

Qmechanic
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Abhinandan Mohanty
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  • Why was this question downvoted? – pela Apr 29 '19 at 09:14
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    This doesn't appear to be about physics but instead about terminology. The word 'law' doesn't have any well-defined consistent meaning and is mostly a historical artifact, so it might be history of physics, but it definitely isn't physics. – jacob1729 Apr 29 '19 at 10:14
  • Possible duplicates: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/6271/2451 , https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/265656/2451 , https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/266089/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Apr 29 '19 at 10:23
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    It's also worth noting that the concept of affirmatively proving things (i.e. "proving that gravity is correct") just isn't how the scientific method works. You can only ever falsify theories (which is why we require them to be falsifiable in the first place). If a prediction from a particular theory of gravity matches with experiment, the most you can say is, "This theory has not been falsified by the data we have." Many other theories may also fit this criteria; in general, in science the preferred theory is the simplest one that isn't falsified in the conditions we want to work with. – probably_someone Apr 29 '19 at 10:57
  • The government’s laws governing, say, taxes cannot be proved either, but they are still called “laws”. – G. Smith Apr 29 '19 at 14:31

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