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I've seen many similar questions, but none of them were appropriated to me. I was reading about an answer that used the Gauss' law. I don't think that's wise because, of course, the electrostatic version of this theorem is obtained due to the $1/r^2$ dependence in the Coulomb's law. So how can we say that in Coulomb's law it has to be that it goes like $1/r^2$?

Qmechanic
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Matteo Brini
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  • Possible duplicates: https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/93/2451 , https://physics.stackexchange.com/q/47084/2451 and links therein. – Qmechanic Jan 11 '20 at 11:23

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Because that is the mathematical model matching what we observe happening physically. Ultimately, the answer to many “why” questions in physics is “because Nature works that way”.

Theoretical “explanations” (for example, based on the surface area of a sphere in 3D space) only make sense in hindsight, after we have observed what actually happens.

In short: We observe, then we create a model to explain what we see. We would not even know that there are three dimensions unless we looked.

G. Smith
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    Theoretical "explanations" only make sense in hindsight, true, but that hindsight does provide some kind of understanding, context, and connection with other phenomena even if the question "why?" is outside of the realm of physics. – garyp Jan 11 '20 at 14:01
  • @garyp Yes, I agree. – G. Smith Jan 12 '20 at 00:39