dorothia15
07-27-2007, 03:45 AM
Carl Friedrich Gauss referred to mathematics as "the Queen of the Sciences" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Math#Mathematics_as_science).In the original Latin Regina Scientiarum, as well as in German Königin der Wissenschaften, the word corresponding to science means (field of) knowledge. Indeed, this is also the original meaning in English, and there is no doubt that mathematics is in this sense a science. The specialization restricting the meaning to natural science is of later date. If one considers science to be strictly about the physical world, then mathematics, or at least pure mathematics, is not a science. Albert Einstein has stated that "as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality."
Many philosophers believe that mathematics is not experimentally falsifiable,[citation needed] and thus not a science according to the definition of Karl Popper. However, in the 1930s important work in mathematical logic showed that mathematics cannot be reduced to logic, and Karl Popper concluded that "most mathematical theories are, like those of physics and biology, hypothetico-deductive: pure mathematics therefore turns out to be much closer to the natural sciences whose hypotheses are conjectures, than it seemed even recently."[16] Other thinkers, notably Imre Lakatos, have applied a version of falsificationism to mathematics itself.
Today, the school education (http://college-france.com) sees math subject as the important tool in school curriculum.
Many philosophers believe that mathematics is not experimentally falsifiable,[citation needed] and thus not a science according to the definition of Karl Popper. However, in the 1930s important work in mathematical logic showed that mathematics cannot be reduced to logic, and Karl Popper concluded that "most mathematical theories are, like those of physics and biology, hypothetico-deductive: pure mathematics therefore turns out to be much closer to the natural sciences whose hypotheses are conjectures, than it seemed even recently."[16] Other thinkers, notably Imre Lakatos, have applied a version of falsificationism to mathematics itself.
Today, the school education (http://college-france.com) sees math subject as the important tool in school curriculum.