The German mathematician
Carl Friedrich Gauss referred to mathematics as "the Queen of the Sciences".[sup]
[47][/sup] More recently,
Marcus du Sautoy has called mathematics "the Queen of Science ... the main driving force behind scientific discovery".[sup]
[48][/sup] In the original Latin
Regina Scientiarum, as well as in German
Königin der Wissenschaften, the word corresponding to
science means a "field of knowledge", and this was the original meaning of "science" in English, also; mathematics is in this sense a field of knowledge. The specialization restricting the meaning of "science" to
natural science follows the rise of
Baconian science, which contrasted "natural science" to
scholasticism, the
Aristotelean method of inquiring from
first principles. The role of empirical experimentation and observation from the external world is arguably negligible in mathematics,[sup]
[49][/sup] especially when compared to natural sciences such as
biology,
chemistry, or
physics.
Albert Einstein 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."[sup]
[50][/sup]
