Queen Of The Sciences Quotes (6 quotes)
Gauss once said, “Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and number theory the queen of mathematics.” If this is true we may add that the Disquisitions is the Magna Charter of number theory.
In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (1878, 8, 435. As cited and translated in Robert Édouard Moritz, Memorabilia Mathematica; Or, The Philomath’s Quotation-book (1914), 158.
Mathematics is not arithmetic. Though mathematics may have arisen from the practices of counting and measuring it really deals with logical reasoning in which theorems—general and specific statements—can be deduced from the starting assumptions. It is, perhaps, the purest and most rigorous of intellectual activities, and is often thought of as queen of the sciences.
Essay,'Private Games', in Lewis Wolpert, Alison Richards (eds.), A Passion for Science (1988), 53.
![Carl Friedrich Gauss quote: Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and arithmetic [number theory] is the queen of mathematics.](https://todayinsci.com/G/Gauss_Carl/GaussCarl-Queen500x250px.jpg)
Mathematics is the queen of the sciences and arithmetic [number theory] is the queen of mathematics. She often condescends to render service to astronomy and other natural sciences, but in all relations, she is entitled to first rank.
I>Sartorius von
Waltershausen: Gauss zum Gedächtniss (1856), 79. Quoted in Robert Edouard Moritz, Memorabilia
Mathematica (1914), 271.
Mathematics is the queen of the sciences.
…...
The most distinctive characteristic which differentiates mathematics from the various branches of empirical science, and which accounts for its fame as the queen of the sciences, is no doubt the peculiar certainty and necessity of its results.
First sentence of 'Geometry and Empirical Science', collected in Carl Hempel and James H. Fetzer (ed.), The Philosophy of Carl G. Hempel: Studies in Science, Explanation, and Rationality (2001), Chap. 2, 18. Also Carl Hempel, 'Geometry and Empirical Science', collected in J.R. Newman (ed.), The World of Mathematics (1956), Vol. 3, 1635.
This trend [emphasizing applied mathematics over pure mathematics] will make the queen of the sciences into the quean of the sciences.
As given, without citation, in Howard W. Eves Mathematical Circles Squared (1972), 158, which attributes it (via Dirk J. Struik) to a memorandum in which Passano wrote of the trend in the Dept. of Mathematics at M.I.T. Webmaster has as yet been unable to identify a primary source. (Can you help?) [Note: “quean” is an archaic word for: a disreputable woman; specifically : prostitute.—Merriam-Webster. “Thus the semantic spread between queen and quean could not be greater: from a woman of the highest repute to one of the lowest.” —alphadictionary.com]
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
