Terence Tao on Nostr: Science and technology can produce positive results that can be extremely convincing: ...

Science and technology can produce positive results that can be extremely convincing: a successful demonstration of heavier-than-air flight, for instance, is hard to refute (assuming of course that no fraudulent manipulation of the presentation was made, such as editing of the video recordings). Negative results, by their nature, are much more provisional in nature. Suppose for instance that a prototype heavier-than-air machine fails to take flight. This can be useful experimental data for future designs, but it does not provide strong evidence that such flight is physically impossible.

Empirical laws of nature can provide stronger negative evidence, but they are still not ironclad, as many such laws have limitations on their range of applicability. For instance, Archimedes law of bouyancy is an empirically valid law which does seem to provide a strong obstruction to heavier-than-air flight; but of course such powered flight is still possible, as one needs to recognize that Archimedes' law only applies to fluids in static equilibrium, as opposed to dynamic fluid flows where additional effects such as aerodynamic lift are in play. (1/7)