Sometimes - very rarely - we observe an apparent violation of our models of the fundamental laws. Though our scientific models may last for a generation or two, they are not stable over the course of centuries... but do not fancy that this makes the universe itself whimsical. That is mixing up the map with the territory. For when the dust subsides and the old theory is overthrown, it turns out that the universe always was acting according to the new generalization we have discovered, which once again is absolutely universal as far as humanity's knowledge extends. When it was discovered that Newtonian gravitation was a special case of General Relativity, it was seen that General Relativity had been governing the orbit of Mercury for decades before any human being knew about it; and it would later become apparent that General Relativity had been governing the collapse of stars for billions of years before humanity. It is only our model that was mistaken - the Law itself was always absolutely constant - or so our new model tells us.
I remember my physics teacher explained this one day. He said:
We start with a poor but general understanding, that things fall toward the ground. This is like a big square of stone, it's familiar but undefined and for most purposes it's useless.
We advance our understanding, chipping away at the stone to reveal a model that is more practical. To an understanding that is beyond simply observations. Objects fall at 9.81m/s/s. You'v now got an octagonal disc of stone, you could run a cart on it, but you probably wouldn't get far before you break your tail bone.
Then we go beyond just passively observing and begin testing. We find data, compile it and test it against models. This is like using a finishing chisel and sand paper. You get the Theory of Relativity, it's smooth, it's polished and it's a perfect wheel.
Now just wait for someone to invent a hover car and your wheel and the theory of relativity are old news.
Depends of what you mean by fundamental. Every law is an incomplete description of a part of the universe. One of first things you do when coming across such a law, is test it. This not only determines whether it is valid, but, perhaps more importantly, where and when it is valid.
Think for example of Newton's law of gravitation. It works remarkably well in all the cases available at the time, with, perhaps[1], one exception: the behavior of Mercury was a bit funky.
Wait a few hundred years, and here comes a young jewish scientist called Einstein with a strange new law of gravitation that not only agrees perfectly with Newton in most cases, it also takes care of all the nagging exceptions that are known. We're still looking for further [2] exceptions to Einsteins general theory of relativity, but I have no doubt that eventually some one else will come along with a new fangled theory that will take care of those as well.
This is how science works. Laws are idealized approximations to the real world with well defined (although sometimes unknown) boundaries of applicability. Whenever we find ourselves too constricted by them we eventually create a better description that, by adding some complexity, will remove or at least expand, some of the boundaries.
If this is true in something as fundamental as gravitation, it will be even more so in anything that deals with Human Behavior. People like to be different (or at least thing they are) but there are basic constants and mechanisms that are present in each of us.
[1] I'm not sure whether or not the problem with Mercury was already known by Newton's time.
[2] So far the only place where it doesn't seem to work well is when quantum effects are present as well.
Even Newton's laws had exceptions, i.e. general relativity. No theory in physics is perfect, and neither are the theories in this article (they're just a lot less perfect). The usefulness of laws is in their simplicity and their predictive power.
If ever there was or will be a time when special relativity was or will be violated, I will be extraordinarily surprised. Newton's law wasn't fundamental, it was just a law, while special relativity may be the most fundamental law we have considering it manifests itself in everything. That's the difference between a mere law and a fundamental law.
I prefer to look at general relativity not as exceptions to Newtons Laws but rather, Newton's Laws as a special limiting case of the more general theory of relativity.
So I posit a theory: For any given theory, there are areas outside its boundaries where it breaks down and can say nothing or only nonsense but that doesn't make it wrong (which need not be binary) - so long as it is contained in a more general and more accurate theory. We can then only measure its correctness based on how well it predicts within its domain and then how well it folds into the future more general theory.
Theories aren't laws. Laws are observations. Gravity is a theory: why do balls fall to the ground when you throw them? Gravitation is a law: balls fall to the ground when you throw them.
Relativity isn't an exception to Newton's law, it's just more accurate. An exception would be a ball not falling to ground after you threw it in the air.
There are precious few Laws like that. Gravity, Constant Proportions, Thermodynamics, etc. While they're taught as a separate, somehow more powerful thing than theory, really they cannot exist without a theoretical framework. Entropy and enthalpy don't exist outside of theory, gravity "always follows the inverse square law" under current beliefs about gravity and theoretical assumptions (when are there ever truly only two interacting bodies?)
I prefer to think of laws as statistical correlations that are so repeatable that their variance has gone to zero. These are words that only have meaning in context of a model though. They're embedded in theory, necessarily wrong theory.
Laws are just what scientists called what they thought were fundamental theories back in their more arrogant days; they've since matured and no longer promote any theory to law because they know they're probably wrong.
Newtons laws are theories just as Einsteins theories are just like Newtons laws. If Newton invented his laws today, we'd call them theories, not laws.
It's not so much about the exceptions as it is about the domain the law applies in. Someone else mentioned Newtons law of gravity: In the very large domain of "stuff we can see and touch", Newtons law works perfectly. Even on the scale of planets, it's so close that it took centuries to detect that it was off. On the scale of atoms, it breaks down, so we can define the domain of Newtons law as the interval "bigger than molecules to the solar system" in which it can reliably be applied.
The bigger and better defined the domain is, the more useful the law. If the domain that you can reliably apply the law to is ill defined or has many unpredictable exceptions, it's probably not a very good law.
What most science is about is building a mathematical model of the thing under description.
As software engineers, we know that models and other abstractions break down around the edges, especially when the abstractions leak.
No difference in scientific models. Just because he has a PhD in physics and a white coat doesn't mean that his models (in physics) aren't just as leaky as a software model. His are just better-defined.
Otherwise, it is a well known fact that disregarding [or exempting oneself from] the law can have more gains [sometimes even if you get caught]. You get a competitive advantage by exploiting the exceptions [if there aren't any, then you make yourself one].
That's not my understanding of the word "law". Have I been mistaken all this time?