Laws

The First Law prioritizes human safety above all else, ensuring that artificial intelligence acts as a benevolent protector of humanity. It forms the core ethical foundation of Asimov's robotic universe.

This law establishes a hierarchy of command, prioritizing human authority while maintaining the absolute mandate of human safety above obedience. It creates complex logical dilemmas when obedience risks indirect harm.

This law ensures the preservation of valuable robotic assets, allowing for self-defense and evasion, provided it does not endanger humans or violate a direct human command. It introduces a vital but lowest-priority survival instinct.

This law defines inertia, the tendency of objects to resist changes in their state of motion. It implies that force is not needed to keep an object moving, but to change its motion. It sets the reference frame for classical mechanics.

The acceleration of an object as produced by a net force is directly proportional to the magnitude of the net force, in the same direction as the net force, and inversely proportional to the mass of the object. It quantifies the effect of force on motion.

This law states that forces always occur in pairs. If object A exerts a force on object B, then object B simultaneously exerts a force of equal magnitude and opposite direction on object A. It explains interactions between objects.

This law establishes the basis for temperature measurement. It implies that temperature is a fundamental property of matter. It was formulated after the first three laws but is considered more fundamental.

The total energy of an isolated system remains constant. It connects work and heat as forms of energy transfer. It denies the possibility of a perpetual motion machine of the first kind.

Natural processes are irreversible and tend toward disorder (entropy). Heat always flows spontaneously from hotter to colder regions. It sets the direction of time and the limits of efficiency for heat engines.

It is impossible to reach absolute zero in a finite number of steps. As temperature approaches absolute zero, the entropy of a system approaches a constant minimum.

Aggregate supply creates its own aggregate demand; production acts as the source of demand. It suggests that overproduction is impossible in the long run because producing goods generates income to buy other goods. This principle is a cornerstone of classical economics.

It describes the force interacting between static electrically charged particles. Similar to Newton's gravity, but for electric charges (and can be repulsive). It is fundamental to electromagnetism.

The current flowing through a conductor between two points is directly proportional to the voltage across the two points. It defines the relationship between the three fundamental electrical variables in a circuit.

It explains the direction of induced current. It is a qualitative law that specifies the direction of induced current but states nothing about its magnitude. It ensures the conservation of energy in electromagnetic circuits.

It describes how an electric field interacts with a magnetic circuit to produce an electromotive force (EMF). It is the fundamental operating principle of transformers, inductors, and many types of electrical motors and generators.

Three scientific laws describing the motion of planets around the Sun. They describe the shape of the orbit, the speed of the planet, and the relationship between distance and orbital period. They improved upon Copernican theory.

Galaxies are moving away from Earth at speeds proportional to their distance. The farther they are, the faster they are moving away. This observation provided the first observational evidence for the expansion of the universe.

This observation established the cadence for the semiconductor industry, driving rapid technological progress and price reductions in electronics for decades.

An observation that the amount of work required is adjusted to the time available for its completion, rather than the complexity of the task itself.

People are more compelled to correct a wrong answer than to helpfully answer a question. It leverages the human urge to correct others.

An adage about Internet culture. It asserts that if an online discussion (regardless of topic or scope) goes on long enough, sooner or later someone will compare someone or something to Hitler or Nazism.

It highlights the difficulty of distinguishing between sincerity and satire in text-based communications where voice and body language are missing.

Explain network effects. A single fax machine is useless, but the value of every fax machine increases with the total number of fax machines in the network.

This law claims that adding more people to a late project increases communication overhead and training time, delaying the project further.

For a fixed mass of an ideal gas kept at a fixed temperature, pressure and volume are inversely proportional. If you decrease volume, pressure increases.

A humorous axiom stating that if there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it.

When the pressure on a sample of a dry gas is held constant, the Kelvin temperature and the volume will be in direct proportion. Gases expand when heated.

Equal volumes of all gases, at the same temperature and pressure, have the same number of molecules. It relates the volume of a gas to the amount of substance (moles).

It guarantees stable long-term results for random events. Casinos rely on this law to ensure profitability over time despite individual wins.

Also known as the first-digit law. The number 1 appears as the leading significant digit about 30% of the time, while 9 appears less than 5% of the time. Used to detect fraud.

It describes the interaction between the sellers of a resource and the buyers for that resource. It defines the effect that the availability of a particular product and the desire (or demand) for that product has on price.

It states that after some optimal level of capacity is reached, adding an additional factor of production will actually result in smaller increases in output.

If two forms of commodity money in circulation are accepted by law as having similar face value, the more valuable commodity will gradually disappear from circulation. People will hoard the 'good' money and spend the 'bad'.

Also known as the 80/20 rule. It asserts that for many outcomes, roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes (the 'vital few'). It is a common rule of thumb in business and economics.

One of the earliest and best-preserved legal codes from ancient Babylon. It established a standardized system of justice with scaled punishments based on social status and the principle of retaliation ('lex talionis').

The legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Tables consolidated earlier traditions into an enduring set of laws. It is considered the starting point of the Western legal tradition.

A procedural defence that prevents an accused person from being tried again on the same (or similar) charges following a valid acquittal or conviction. It protects against government overreach.

A recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, to bring the prisoner to court, to determine if the detention is lawful.

An adage that states if a publisher use a question as a headline, they are likely trying to imply something sensationally false that they cannot back up with facts.

A law of sociology of science which states that scientific discoveries are rarely named after the person who actually discovered them. Ironically, Stigler acknowledged that Stephen Merton discovered this law.

One of Arthur C. Clarke's three laws regarding the future of space and technology. It highlights the wonder and incomprehensibility of advanced future tech to primitive observers.

A fundamental concept in quantum mechanics. It states that there is a limit to the precision with which certain pairs of physical properties, such as position and momentum, can be known.

This principle explains the structure of atoms and the stability of matter. It prevents electrons from collapsing into the nucleus and dictates the arrangement of electrons in shells.

The foundation of quantum mechanics. It solved the 'ultraviolet catastrophe' by proposing that energy is emitted in discrete packets (quanta) rather than continuously.

Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared. It implies that mass and energy are interchangeable; they are different forms of the same thing. A small amount of mass can be converted into a tremendous amount of energy.

It explains the behavior of fluid flow. Faster moving fluids exert less pressure. It is fundamental to aerodynamics and hydrodynamics.

The principle behind hydraulic systems. If you apply pressure to a confined fluid, that pressure is distributed equally in all directions.

It explains why objects float or sink. If the weight of the water displaced is equal to the weight of the object, it floats.

Mendel's First Law. It explains how traits are inherited from parents to offspring, ensuring genetic variation.

Mendel's Second Law. The inheritance of one trait (like color) is not dependent on the inheritance of another trait (like shape), generally speaking (barring linkage).

An ecogeographical rule that correlates body mass with latitude. Larger animals have a lower surface area to volume ratio, helping them retain heat in cold climates.

Similar to Bergmann's rule but focuses on appendages (ears, tails, limbs). Shorter appendages conserve heat (cold climate), while longer ones radiate heat (warm climate).

This mathematical principle explains biomechanical limits. As an animal scales up, its volume (and mass) increases much faster than its surface area (and bone strength), limiting how large land animals can get.

An organism is unable to return, even partially, to a previous evolutionary stage already realized in the ranks of its ancestors. Structures once lost are not regained in the same form.

The Law of Parsimony. Among competing hypotheses that predict equally well, the one with the fewest assumptions should be selected. The simplest explanation is usually the correct one.

A philosophical razor that eliminates unlikely explanations for human behavior. It suggests that negative actions are more likely caused by incompetence or neglect rather than evil intent.

An epistemological razor that serves as a general rule for rejecting refutable claims that have no basis in fact. The burden of proof lies with the claim-maker.

The Is-Ought Problem. It states that many writers make claims about what ought to be, based on statements about what is. Hume argued there is a significant difference between descriptive statements (about facts) and prescriptive statements (about values).

One of the three classic laws of thought. Nothing can both exist and not exist at the same time and in the same respect. It is fundamental to logic.

Mathematical formulae for calculating the relative strengths of military forces. The Linear Law applies to ancient combat (1-on-1), while the Square Law applies to modern combat with ranged weapons.

A roughly accurate rule of thumb for human survival priorities in extreme conditions. It helps prioritize immediate needs in emergency situations.

A rule of thumb used in air navigation. It approximates the trigonometry involved in navigation errors, allowing pilots to make mental calculations and corrections easily.

Using metrics to judge performance inevitably corrupts the metric. Similar to Goodhart's Law ('When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure').

Often applied to academic politics: 'Academic politics is the most vicious and bitter form of politics, because the stakes are so low.' Low stakes mean there's no cost to fighting.

A self-referential adage about the difficulty of accurately estimating the time it will take to complete tasks of substantial complexity. It highlights the recursive nature of delays.

Given the vast number of events a human experiences daily (seeing things, hearing things), statistically improbable coincidences are inevitable over time.

The most frequent word occurs twice as often as the second most frequent word, three times as often as the third, and so on. It applies to city populations, website traffic, and more.

A counter to Amdahl's Law. It argues that as computing power increases, we solve larger problems, rather than just solving the same problems faster. Thus, parallelization scales better than Amdahl predicted.

It defines the maximum improvement possible for a system when only part of the system is improved. If a program is 50% serial, even infinite parallel power will only double the speed.

A claim about software development. It suggests that if there are enough people testing and reviewing code (as in open source), almost every problem will be characterized quickly and the fix will be obvious to someone.

A computing adage stating that software bloat negates hardware advances. Despite 1000x faster CPUs, modern word processors don't feel 1000x faster than 1990s ones.

Discovered by French agricultural engineer Maximilien Ringelmann in 1913 through rope-pulling experiments, this phenomenon shows that as group size increases, individual contribution steadily drops. While two people pull at ~93% of their individual strength, a group of eight pulls at less than 50% per person—a fundamental finding that laid the groundwork for the modern psychological concept of "social loafing".