Queen Of Sciences

Math is often called the queen of the sciences - but what grants it this noble accolade, a title that suggests it looks down upon the lessor disciplines of physics, chemistry and biology, with an attitude of austere supremacy?

It is because Math holds itself high above the vulgar scrum of opinions and interpretations: the contrived models of physics, the statistical interpretation of biological experimentation, the alchemies of chemistry. The theories proposed by these sciences are open to debate, and it is the sport of the main players in each field to fight the tradition they were reared in; and with strength of character and intellect, reform it to their version of the truth. Because of this the sciences (the lessor sciences) are constantly changing. Every few decades there will be a paradigm shift, with a new theory negating one which previously had been heralded as unassailable. Einstein's legacy has made many of Newton's lows of motion invalid; neurology has made phrenology redundant; while the periodic table has ended the quest for the philosopher's stone.

Math looks down upon these inconsistences and squabbling for fickle and transient truths with a disdainful eye. In her realm what is true now is true forever. The Elements of Euclid, written in 300 BC, is just as accurate now as it was twenty three centuries ago. Math concerns itself with pure reason: the logical implications of axioms. Conjectures and hypotheses can be posited, and their truth or falsity be deduced by Mathmatical proof. Once proved, a Conjecture, hypotheses or theorem, is true for all time. Perhaps the most famous theorem of all, that of Pythagoras (though modern scholarship makes this attribution doubtful), which states that the square of the longest side of a right angled triangle is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides, is as true now as it was in ancient Greece.

No one sane or sensible could say with sincerity that Pythagoras' theorem is false, or that (e^∏i) +1 = 0 untrue. Unlike the arts, where someone may have a subjective preference for Beethoven over Schumann, or may be mad about Monet, but find Vermeer a vomitive, Math is beyond opinion. A student may certainly prefer geometry to number theory, but their dislike of a particular domain does not make it any less valid. Math deals only with objective logical truths.