What is the difference between a theory and a scientific law?

Answer 1

You know, you could at least try doing your homework yourself.

Just a thought.

In reality, there is very little difference between a scientific theory and a scientific law, despite what your textbooks will tell you.

For instance, Einstein's Theory of General Relativity and Darwin's Theory of Evolution are accepted scientific fact despite their names. Newton's Laws of Motion are known to be superseded by the Theory of General Relativity despite their names.

Answer 2

Properly speaking, there is no difference.

If you go by the textbook answer, a hypothesis is just an idea of what might happen before you even perform a test. You have to form a hypothesis before you know how to make your experiment! A theory, by the textbook, is a hypothesis that has been proven correct on the basis of at least one experiment.

However, if you look closely in many textbooks, you'll find that there are no 'laws'. Supposedly a law is something that cannot be broken, and how can you ever prove that a theory is always correct? The only way you could would be to carry out every possible experiement in every possible circumstance. This is, quite obviously, patently impossible.

This doesn't stop people from CALLING things laws. Obviously, after you've carried out thousands or millions of experiments, you're going to start thinking that even if your theory is proven wrong, the correction is going to be just a slight change to the existing theory rather than a vast overturning of it. And indeed this is what we observe for many of the very well-tested theories that are around today. Quantum mechanics might be seen as completely invalidating classical mechanics, for example, but really the difference except for the completely minute is miniscule.

So calling something a scientific law or not is really something done more by laypeople than scientists, or if done by scientists it is more a recognition that the rule is -mostly- nailed down rather than completely inviolable. Hope that helps!

Answer 3

A theory is a proposed description, explanation, or model of the manner of interaction of a set of natural phenomena, capable of predicting future occurrences or observations of the same kind, and capable of being tested through experiment or otherwise falsified through empirical observation. It follows from this that for scientists "theory" and "fact" do not necessarily stand in opposition. For example, it is a fact that an apple dropped on earth has been observed to fall towards the center of the planet, and the theory which explains why the apple behaves so is the current theory of gravitation.

A physical law, scientific law, or a law of nature is a scientific generalization based on empirical observations of physical behavior. They are typically conclusions based on the confirmation of hypotheses through repeated scientific experiments over many years, and which have become accepted universally within the scientific community. While there are no uncontroversial rules as to how or when a scientific hypothesis becomes a scientific law, scientific laws at their strongest are generally observations that have never had repeatable contradictions.

Answer 4

A theory is a testable explanatory framework.

A law doesn't have a single solid definition, but is usually applied to a mathematical characterization of some pattern of results, and usually for something shown to be highly reliable.

Many people think that a theory becomes a law when it is finally accepted as "the truth" - I'm sure you'll get many such answers. But that's a profound misunderstanding of science.

A theory that is very well confirmed is STILL a theory - it's STILL a testable explanatory framework. And many "laws" you see are not actually "the truth" - we know that Newton's Laws of Motion are not actually fully accurate, but we still call them "Laws".

Answer 5

After a theory is scientifically proven, it becomes a law

Answer 6

I suspect that a theory is an educated guess while a scientific law
is supported by scientific proof.

Answer 7

theory is an idea of how something is or will work according to known laws of physics etc. scientific law is proof that something works or is

Answer 8

a law has proven to be consistent all the time.
A theory is still being tested.

Answer 9

a theory is something thats been researched and has been working. its not a law yet though because its not 100% guaranteed. its like a guideline. a law is something that will ALWAYS come out that way.

Answer 10

when they are tested and that is true they become theory and then many years passed and that theory works true its a law