It does tell the fundamental relationship. Check noyes whitney equation, reynolds number and bernoulle theorem for further substantiation.

Hi.

This is a great question, and the history of the philosophy of science in the 20th century and even modern physicists are debating topics like this. With that in mind, my own opinion (please don't take for more than that) is that Newton's laws of motion are empirical, but models derived from them can be considered fundamental.

This is partly a semantic issue, but many people regard empirical laws are derived from observations and fundamental laws as derived from assumptions or postulates (usually models) using known relationships and usually mathematics (but not necessarily always using math).

It is certainly true that Newton's laws of motion are derived from observation. (Along the same lines, Newton had no idea what gravity was... that was partly answered by Einstein's general theory of relativity... but that does not diminish the genius or utility of his work. Similarly, the first law of thermodynamics was not "derived", but has always been accepted since no observation contradicts it.)

However, with the calculus that he developed, the "empirical" laws of motion served as postulates or assumptions for an incredibly rich set of models to follow, ranging from celestial mechanics to fluid flow. I view these as "fundamental" because of the above semantics... derived using mathematics from postulates and mathematics.

(By the way, Leibniz also independently developed calculus around the same time, but not for the purpose of solving physics problems.)

Again, this is just one opinion that stems from the semantics used by lot of scientists. (Of course, a lot does not mean all or even most... just not a small fraction.) In particular, physicists are having these types of discussions all the time with regard to string theory, supersymmetry (SUSY), the standard model of elementary particles, naturalness in physical laws, etc.

And again, a great question. I will be looking forward to other opinions!

Of course the Newton's law are empirical, since they were derived from observation of physical phoenomena. The second step has been to put these observations in a mathematical form, to be able to apply these laws to other physical phoenomena, to devise "models". As far as the laws are able to give correct results (with the approx of the measure) are by sure useful and true. But when Einstein found discrepancies, these laws became a "particular case" of the more general relativity theory, where velocity is much more less than light velocity, only 3D coordinates (relativity has 4, time too is a coordinate), reference system is only one... Every theory in physics is valid until able to give a good explanation for new facts, then, when some discrepancy arise, in the first step the theory is "forced" to explain these new facts, then... will pass and a theory will arise, explaining more facts (and looking to explain much more). This new theory by sure will have discrepancies too, so, after trial to force facts will fail, another brand new theory will be proposed, and so on until this too will fail somewhere. Nothing of the past is lost: it will became a in newer theories. So you get a reply to why "general theory" is still a hope for scientist, and they work hard to get it - a small step a time. Relativity is 120 years old - and still is good, wait for a new Einstein who will make a similar revolution! For now, we keep it good - until next step (it WORKS). And maybe this is the reason for which we use older theories too, in their field.