The first two are:
1.When a distinguished but elderly scientist states that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he states that something is impossible, he is very probably wrong.
2.The only way of discovering the limits of the possible is to venture a little way past them into the impossible.
Arthur C. Clarke, the famed sci-fi author who penned these laws, is probably best known for co-authoring the screenplay to 2001: A Space Odyssee
There are also two variations on the third law that I like. Not sure who coined them.
And for those who love crunchy magic systems:
That last one fits most of Brandon Sanderson’s magic systems.
This is pretty much what I see in Terry Pratchett’s “Discworld” universe.
The last one there is my basic philosophy for real life. Magic is real, we just understand it really, really well
Well we did trap lightning in rocks and teach them to think https://jakec007.github.io/2020-06-28-how-we-trick-rocks-to-think/
Yeah, so we have this thing we call magnetism. It creates a field and charged particles try to follow the field. Now we rotate the particles against the field and we get electricity. It is totaly figured out!
Aether sprites play in the ley lines and drag things along with them, got it.
It’s new cool tech until my parents stop being afraid of it. By that time it’s been corrupted by evil.