Ping pong balls !

Let's assume we have an endless resource of ping pong balls. We would also need a container for them, let's say the size of our beloved sun. Now that would be one huge amount of ping pong balls don't you think. if you dare, you could even calculate how many. A human-like character the corresponding size is holding the cup and giving the cup a flip and sees the ping pong balls go around. What does it look like? Ping pong balls? No. it looks like some sort of white liquid that splashes inside the container.

Let's make another container of basketballs. Now we need another container. How would that look like? Most likely that would look like red liquid that moves in a slightly different way.

Now our imaginary character, who considers himself a scientist, looks at these white and red liquids carefully. He sees them move in different ways and tries to think what it means. There must be a parameter in the liquid that makes it move in a different way. He decides to call it viscosity. Or - let's call it discocity just to separate it. And because it's groovy. Our imaginary scientist carries on his studies with the liquids and comes up with a couple of equations that represent the behaviour of the liquid, discocity being one of the parameters. Our huge scientist is quite pleased with this formula, it seems to apply well with the liquids. And throw in a massive vessel of tennis balls, and we have yellow liquid. Theory confirmed.

This is an example of plain physical emergence. A complex phenomenon on a meter-scale (balls bouncing from each other) appears very different on a million-kilometer-scale. One physical effect disappears and another appears. The system consisting of a trillion ping pong balls is not trillion times more complex than bouncing of one ping pong ball (which is actually quite complicated come to think of it) What I mean to say, for the huge scientist, for reliably predicting how the macro-liquid behaves, it would not be required to model all the bouncings of the little ping-pong balls, it only needs a formula that can be tested, and this discocity-formula seems to apply. This new physical law is a statistical approximation, which applies only to that scale, and when there are billions, trillions of ping pong balls. The formula would not work with ten balls. Of course, we as meter-scale humans, have never had any need of such formula, and I doubt we will. (If we ever do, consider me for the formula naming)

I guess you already know what this is coming to. Our dear Newtonian laws were created by studying the nature, now knowing much about what lies beneath - electrons, quarks and beyond. Does it reduce the value of Newtonian physics? Does it make it wrong? No it does not, as long as we know the scale where it applies. It applies on meter-scale, and when not approaching light speed. Both apply to most people I know.