The exact sciences or quantitative sciences, sometimes called the exact mathematical sciences,[1] are those sciences "which admit of absolute precision in their results"; especially the mathematical sciences.[2] Examples of the exact sciences are mathematics, optics, astronomy,[3] and physics, which many philosophers from Descartes, Leibniz, and Kant to the logical positivists took as paradigms of rational and objective knowledge.[4] These sciences have been practiced in many cultures from antiquity[5][6] to modern times.[7][8] Given their ties to mathematics, the exact sciences are characterized by accurate quantitative expression, precise predictions and/or rigorous methods of testing hypotheses involving quantifiable predictions and measurements.[9]
The distinction between the quantitative exact sciences and those sciences that deal with the causes of things is due to Aristotle, who distinguished mathematics from natural philosophy[10] and considered the exact sciences to be the "more natural of the branches of mathematics."[11] Thomas Aquinas employed this distinction when he said that astronomy explains the spherical shape of the Earth[12] by mathematical reasoning while physics explains it by material causes.[13] This distinction was widely, but not universally, accepted until the scientific revolution of the 17th century.[14] 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.[15]
Linguistics and comparative philology have also been considered exact sciences, most notably by Benjamin Whorf.[16]
See also
