Newton mechanics was wrong: because it didn’t account for the relativistic terms, all the equations are off by some amount. It turns out that we can ignore the error in practical contexts, but that’s still being “wrong”. Another example: the math of a geocentric solar system is often precise enough for practical purposes and so, when it’s simpler, it can be useful to use it instead of Newtonian or relativistic models.

I think this is important because physicists that popularize often make grandiose claims about how reality is when they should know better and then these claims form popular imagination in ways that shutdown thought.

I would say Newtonian mechanics is a good approximation (as it is accurate in its domain, plus easier to conceptialize and compute with than either QM or GR).

Approximations aren't "wrong", they are just simplifications of something less wrong, usually in certain corner cases. Sometimes approximations are derived from the broader theory, and sometimes the broader theory comes later. (And of course, sometimes old theories are proven plain "wrong" by evidence and new theories, but those are things more like alchemy, or mistakes in math proofs, and less like Newton's laws).

Finally, iff we follow your logic then we can say nothing is ever "right". Philosophically it may be useful to realize we may never know the ultimate truth with 100% certainty, but in everyday English "right" can simply mean "appropriate".

> Approximations aren't "wrong", they are just simplifications of something less wrong, usually in certain corner cases.

I think it’s true that wrongness is relative to the use-case. But, on the other hand, before things like the Ultraviolet Catastrophe and the Michelson-Morley experiment, a lot of physicists thought they had the big picture of the universe basically right and just had to fill in the details. The revolution of GR and QM was barely even suspected and this should give us pause when it comes to our confidence in the modern picture of the universe. Relativity and QM will always be useful as models of the spheres they model, but the worldview we’ve built on top of them could change drastically overnight (in historical terms).

But they are wrong, that doesn’t make the not useful though

> Alchemy is wrong. Astrology is wrong.

I think you are partly right. Quantum mechanics and general relativity are incomplete rather than wrong. I don’t think either has been falsified, it’s more that they are just useless in specific cases.

This is in contrast with Newtonian mechanics, which implies Galilean transformation when changing reference frames, which looks right at our usual scales, but is plainly wrong in the general case.

However, the things you mention are not even wrong. As in, they are not falsifiable so you cannot say whether they are right or wrong in theory.

> I don’t think either has been falsified, it’s more that they are just useless in specific cases.

Of course they have. If you try to use SR or GR to predict how particles behave, you will get none of the quantum effects we have observed experimentally.

If you try to use QM or QFT to predict how the planets move* or at least how black holes move, you'll get predictions that don't agree with what telescopes have observed.

So yes, both of the theories have already been falsified.

* I have been told that there are some ways to account for gravity in regular QM in a way similar to GR that essentially work until you get to the kinds of strong fields near a black hole, where they break down again.

Newton was wrong if his project was about uncovering the deep workings of nature. His assumptions were wrong and don’t work. They will never work. They are not “incomplete”.

They are practical though. In that sense astrology can be said to be practical too.. hides.

astrology is not wrong, because it doesn't say anything provable. it just is. it's like saying poetry is wrong or paintings are wrong

Astrologers often make very falsifiable claims, such as "you'll meet the man of your dreams, because Mercury is ascending". Those claims are of course false.