The exact sciences, sometimes called the exact mathematical sciences, are those sciences "which admit of absolute precision in their results"; especially the mathematical sciences. Examples of the exact sciences are mathematics,

optics Optics is the branch of physics that studies the behaviour and properties of light, including its interactions with matter and the construction of instruments that use or detect it. Optics usually describes the behaviour of visible, ultra ...

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

, and

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which rel ...

, which many philosophers from Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant to the logical positivists took as paradigms of rational and objective knowledge. These sciences have been practiced in many cultures from antiquity to modern times. Given their ties to mathematics, the exact sciences are characterized by accurate

quantitative Quantitative may refer to: * Quantitative research, scientific investigation of quantitative properties * Quantitative analysis (disambiguation) * Quantitative verse, a metrical system in poetry * Statistics, also known as quantitative analysis ...

expression, precise predictions and/or rigorous methods of testing hypotheses involving quantifiable predictions and measurements. The distinction between the quantitative exact sciences and those sciences that deal with the causes of things is due to

Aristotle Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical Greece, Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatet ...

, who distinguished mathematics from

natural philosophy Natural philosophy or philosophy of nature (from Latin ''philosophia naturalis'') is the philosophical study of physics, that is, nature and the physical universe. It was dominant before the development of modern science. From the ancient wor ...

and considered the exact sciences to be the "more natural of the branches of mathematics."

Thomas Aquinas Thomas Aquinas, OP (; it, Tommaso d'Aquino, lit=Thomas of Aquino; 1225 – 7 March 1274) was an Italian Dominican friar and priest who was an influential philosopher, theologian and jurist in the tradition of scholasticism; he is known wi ...

employed this distinction when he pointed out that astronomy explains the spherical shape of the Earth by mathematical reasoning while physics explains it by material causes. This distinction was widely, but not universally, accepted until the

scientific revolution The Scientific Revolution was a series of events that marked the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology (including human anatomy) and chemistry transformed ...

of the 17th century. Edward Grant has proposed that a fundamental change leading to the new sciences was the unification of the exact sciences and physics by Kepler, Newton, and others, which resulted in a quantitative investigation of the physical causes of natural phenomena.

Linguistics Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. It is called a scientific study because it entails a comprehensive, systematic, objective, and precise analysis of all aspects of language, particularly its nature and structure. Lingu ...

and comparative philology have also been considered exact sciences, most notably by Benjamin Whorf.Benjamin Whorf, Linguistics as an exact science. In Language, thought and reality: Selected writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf. Edited by J.B. CarrollM.I.T. Press, 1956, 20–232.

References

Formal sciences {{Sci-hist-stub

See also

References