Exact sciences
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"Taking into account the extraordinary, shameful mediocrity of the social sciences in the 20th century, taking into account also the progress accomplished during the same period by the exact sciences and technology, one can expect that the most brilliant, the most inventive literature of the period is the literature of science fiction; it is indeed what we observe […] in its great period, science fiction literature [achieved] an authentic perspective on humanity, its customs, its knowledge, its values, its very existence; it was, in the truest sense of the word, a philosophical literature." --"Sortir du XXe siècle" (2000) by Michel Houellebecq, tr. J.-W. Geerinck |
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An exact science is any field of science capable of accurate quantitative expression or precise predictions and rigorous methods of testing hypotheses, especially reproducible experiments involving quantifiable predictions and measurements. Physics and Chemistry can be considered as exact sciences in this sense.
The term implies a dichotomy between these fields and others, such as the humanities.
See also
- On Exactitude in Science, 1946, short story by Borges and Casares
- Encyclopédie des sciences inexactes, (1930-34) by Raymond Queneau
- Hard science
- Pure science
- Fundamental science
- Demarcation problem
