00:01
This problem is asking us why bode's law does not count as a physical law, specifically which of the criteria for a physical law does it not fulfill? now, if you don't remember from previous problems, bode's law tries to describe the positions of the planets from the sun.
00:17
It says that each planet is twice as far from its star as the planet that came before it.
00:23
So if we have one planet that is two arbitrary units away from our sun, the next one is going to be four arbitrary units, then eight, and 16, then 32, and so on and so on.
00:33
So now let's look at the criteria for a physical law.
00:36
The first says that a physical law has to describe known data.
00:41
Now, at the time when bows with this law down in the 18th century, all the planets that we knew of did actually correspond to this rule.
00:49
They were all about twice as far from the sun as the one before them.
00:53
So this one did actually check out.
00:55
The second definition of a physical law says that it has to be able to predict future observations.
01:03
If someone else does this experiment, or let's say if we look at a different star system, we have to be able to accurately predict, okay, we're going to see the same thing.
01:12
We're all going to see planets that are about twice as far apart or twice as far from the sun as long before them.
01:18
And this is where boat's law fails...