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Has anyone ever considered how the laws of physics that we study came into being.

Richard Hesketh
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    This question is suitable perhaps for the Philosophy Stack, but not here. – HDE 226868 Aug 29 '14 at 21:49
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    This question appears to be off-topic because it is about philosphy rather than physics. – Danu Aug 29 '14 at 21:52
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    Sorry guys, I'm new to this sight. But do physicists never ask that question? – Richard Hesketh Aug 29 '14 at 21:56
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    I think everyone asks that question, at some point in their life. But it can't be answered scientifically. – HDE 226868 Aug 29 '14 at 21:58
  • so does that mean that tere is a relationship between science and philosophy? – Richard Hesketh Aug 29 '14 at 22:01
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    If there is, it's a loose one. – HDE 226868 Aug 29 '14 at 22:07
  • So how can scientists just accept that the laws of physics exist without trying to discover their origin? I would have thought that that was a fundamental question. – Richard Hesketh Aug 29 '14 at 22:12
  • That's a question for philosophers. It can't be scientifically determined. – HDE 226868 Aug 29 '14 at 22:18
  • Science is a brand of philosophy. It came from natural philosophy, and pretty much became its own thing after a while. Scientists do work under certain sets of assumptions: we can observe how the universe works, the universe works according to laws, and things like that. – PipperChip Aug 29 '14 at 22:27
  • This question could be on topic if it asked about a particular "law" in physics. For example, there's an explanation involving symmetry that sort of addresses why energy is conserved (but doesn't as far as I know address why that symmetry exists). But in its present form, the question seems too broad to me. – BMS Aug 29 '14 at 22:27
  • There is an entire discipline called "the philosophy of science", and even PhD means "Doctor of Philosophy" (Philosophiae Doctor). So yes, I would say there is a relationship… I think this is a good question, but off topic for this site. – Floris Aug 30 '14 at 00:53
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    For the record, I don't think this is a bad question per se, nor that scientists shouldn't give it some thought now and again. It's just that, for better or for worse, physics proper decoupled from metaphysics 250 years ago, and this question certainly belongs in the latter category. Have a look at Philosophy. –  Aug 30 '14 at 03:12
  • Philosophers ask: Why is this the way things work? Scientists ask: What is the way things work? Engineers ask: How can I exploit the way things work? – Jim Aug 30 '14 at 21:44

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Actually...

There is a branch of physics that attempts to answer that question. It's called Physical Cosmology. Among many other things, cosmologists want to know why the physical laws are as they are. The trouble is, there just are not that many other universes ready for us to compare. We also don't know what is going on with most of our universe, like with dark matter, and that takes up most of the scientific community's time.

PipperChip
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  • It should also be mentioned that scientific research often goes into manipulating the current laws, not finding out why the laws are. Even if you knew why a law was, it does not guarantee you can manipulate it. – PipperChip Aug 29 '14 at 22:29
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Based on what we know, both from science and philosophy, these are both ill-phrased questions. You can get as many answers to them as you like, and they will all be equally meaningless, because none will bare any logical relationship to known facts about the universe we live in.

Now, there are much better question along these lines, which deal with the reason that we can find laws, at all. "How do we know that nature is reproducible?" and "Why do we assume that there is an objective physical reality?" would be some of these. Maybe you want to think about those for a while and rephrase your question?

CuriousOne
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