Lecture I

Now there is also a third way in which the scientist tries to get at the configuration of Nature. He takes the phenomena to begin with—say, such a simple phenomenon as that a stone, let go, will fall to earth, or if suspended by a string, will pull vertically down towards the earth. Phenomena like this the scientist sums up and so arrives at what he calls a “Law of Nature”. This statement for example would be regarded as a simple “Law of Nature”: “Every celestial body attracts to itself the bodies that are upon it”. We call the force of attraction Gravity or Gravitation and then express how it works in certain “Laws”. Another classical example are the three statements known as “Kepler's Laws”.