I disagree. Indeed, Rizzi’s book is a tough read, but that is because Rizzi is confused and irrelevant. He has nothing to say which is relevant to ante-science. No surprise. Aristotle was wrong about everything except logic, and he did not succeed in utilizing his own logic competently. Had he done so, he would never have declared that heavy objects fall faster than light objects. A follower of Aristotle is an uneducated, illogical nit thinking in the dark ages. You’ll learn more from your neighborhood bartender than from Anthony Rizzi.
If you think otherwise of Rizzi, show a few examples of his relevance to either science or ante-science. I could not find one.
There are not millions of physical laws. There are only a few. I doubt that you know even one of them. Your “equation” y=0.5gt*t is meaningless w/o a description of parameters, and you are too incompetent, or lazy (a related characteristic) to put it into standard mathematical form.
Your statement, “The nature of the laws is to relate observations to mathematical equations,” denotes an understanding of mathematical physics which is just one barf pile removed from the town drunk’s homestead.
I presume you either have a PhD in Philosophy (in which case your rejection of Aristotle could be valid, but your objections to physics is not) or a PhD in Physics (in which case your objections to physics could be valid, but your rejection of Aristotle is not). Or, I suppose a third option is that you just have a BA/BS in Physics or Philosophy and think you know all, but have zero authority to declare either wrong. In any event, you’re wrong at least once.
I guess you never considered that “millions” could be an exaggeration? Off the top of my head in 10 seconds: Ideal gas Law, van der Waals gas law, Newton’s 3 laws, Kepler’s 3 laws, 4 laws of Thermodynamics, law of superposition of waves, conservation laws (about half a dozen of those). That sounds like it’s a bit more than a few, and those are in just physics alone, there’s still plenty more in biology & chemistry.
I don’t see how y=0.5
gt
t is not standard mathematical form, unless you want y_f - y_i = v_0t+0.5
gt*t, but if you’re just dropping a ball from a height, v_0=0 & y_i=0, reducing that equation to what I wrote
I also disagree with my being “lazy” about not including definitions (y=distance, g=gravitational acceleration constant, t=time–happy?), perhaps it befit you to consider that perhaps the OP has knowledge of 1st year physics? In which case, it is likely not necessary to re-state things he might already know (unless you’ve got the habit of explaining every single term of an equation over and over and over again to your classmates (and assuming, as well, that you are a physics student & not a philosophy student)).
Physical laws are not mathematical equations; this is the whole point of the first two chapters of Rizzi’s book. However, the observables can be expressed as a mathematical relation of several quantities. Thus, the nature of the laws are to relate observations to mathematical equations. I see how that might be confusing if you’re so in tuned to mathematical physics, but in reality math is just a useful tool to explain events on paper & does not at all denote reality.
Think about it this way: have you ever seen number one (and not the figure we represent as one: 1)? No, no one has because the number one (and indeed all numbers) are not real, they’re useful representative tools. I bet your first thought after reading the question was: “One what?” And that is exactly my point, one is a quantifier & not a physical entity. Hence, Rizzi has shown a relevance in physics. Also, I’m pretty sure discovering the GR version of momentum (something that eluded other scientists for 80 years) is a pretty good example of his relevance in science.
