I have been searching for the past few days about whether mathematics is called the mother of science. I often end up debating with people, especially those from a physics background, who argue that physics is the real mother of science. This has left me quite confused and I would really like to know which one is more accurate. I would appreciate your opinions on this from a scientific perspective. It would be even more helpful if each of you could explain with an example. Thank you in advance.

18 minutes ago, mavoo said:

I have been searching for the past few days about whether mathematics is called the mother of science. I often end up debating with people, especially those from a physics background, who argue that physics is the real mother of science. This has left me quite confused and I would really like to know which one is more accurate. I would appreciate your opinions on this from a scientific perspective. It would be even more helpful if each of you could explain with an example. Thank you in advance.

Physics is empirical and a way of finding out how the universe operates at the fundamental level, mathematics is not. I would describe mathematics with science but not science Itself, hence STEM.

Yep, and to take a WAG, I would say the earliest empirical gathering of observations were probably more in the area of seasonal changes, solar and celestial bodies positions, animal behavior, and plants. (i.e. astronomy, zoology, and botany were "mothers")

Edited August 29Aug 29 by TheVat

50 minutes ago, mavoo said:

I have been searching for the past few days about whether mathematics is called the mother of science. I often end up debating with people, especially those from a physics background, who argue that physics is the real mother of science. This has left me quite confused and I would really like to know which one is more accurate. I would appreciate your opinions on this from a scientific perspective. It would be even more helpful if each of you could explain with an example. Thank you in advance.

I'd agree with @TheVat that observation of nature is the mother of science. Systematic observation was what got science started.

Physics is arguably the most fundamental of the sciences, but not their mother in any historical sense. A great deal of science was, and is, done with little or no mathematics. Physics relies on it very heavily of course, but even in physics one has to define the concepts that are related in mathematical expressions first. Which has to be done in words, not mathematics. Electric charge, force, energy, mass, velocity etc.....are all concepts that need to be understood through words, before you can go on to write equations about them.

Even early math used very little of what we think of as math, i.e. algebraic equations. Pythagoras had his famous "proof by rearrangement" which used only geometric arrangement.

10 minutes ago, TheVat said:

Even early math used very little of what we think of as math, i.e. algebraic equations. Pythagoras had his famous "proof by rearrangement" which used only geometric arrangement.

Yes we have to thank a Persian, writing in Arabic during the Abbasid Caliphate, at the time of Charlemagne, for algebra.:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Jabr)

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Yep, and to take a WAG, I would say the earliest empirical gathering of observations were probably more in the area of seasonal changes, solar and celestial bodies positions, animal behavior, and plants. (i.e. astronomy, zoology, and botany were "mothers")

My WAG is that early human inquiry into nature involved munching on things.

Not sure there ever was a 'mother' of science or mathematics.

Women were very much in the minority in years gone by.

Most authorities acknowledge Aristotle as the father of science, for some of the reasons others have all ready given.

As regards women Hypatia of Alexandria was probably the first, and for a long time only, female mathematician but she was not a founder as such, and died a tragic death.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypatia

Here is Aristotle encapsulated

What is "WAG?"

Edited August 29Aug 29 by pinball1970

Wild-Ass Guess (there could be other permutations)

4 minutes ago, CharonY said:

Wild-Ass Guess (there could be other permutations)

Which may be found in the WAG's guide to the Karma Sutra

😄

6 hours ago, CharonY said:

My WAG is that early human inquiry into nature involved munching on things.

The technical term for that is snackology.

4 hours ago, studiot said:

Which may be found in the WAG's guide to the Karma Sutra

Which is similar to the Kama Sutra, except it has only the positions you deserve.

xkcd

Purity

5 hours ago, pinball1970 said:

What is "WAG?"

5 hours ago, CharonY said:

Wild-Ass Guess (there could be other permutations)

The mother of crackpottery.

6 hours ago, studiot said:

Not sure there ever was a 'mother' of science or mathematics.

The ancient Egyptians and Babylonians, Chinese, Indian, etc who started studying the mathematics of the real world, probably wouldn't know the difference. They wouldn't be able to say whether they're doing physics, or mathematics, or geometry, etc.

It has long been noted that science is a child of philosophy. Philosophy studies knowledge and science uses a methodology that helps us to acquire that knowledge.

But what is the Mother of Science? Well, that would be curiosity.

We can not assign credit to any particular discipline or even to any specific culture or time in history. The reality is that you can watch a two year old sitting in his high-chair, while he drops pieces of his food over the edge of his tray, then carefully watches them fall to the floor -- and he will do this again and again and again -- because he is studying gravity. One of his first science experiments.

Gee

11 minutes ago, Gees said:

But what is the Mother of Science? Well, that would be curiosity.

Great grandmother, perhaps. Curiosity was around long before science. Rigor is a closer relative.

13 minutes ago, Gees said:

We can not assign credit to any particular discipline or even to any specific culture or time in history. The reality is that you can watch a two year old sitting in his high-chair, while he drops pieces of his food over the edge of his tray, then carefully watches them fall to the floor -- and he will do this again and again and again -- because he is studying gravity. One of his first science experiments.

People dropped things and “studied” gravity in this way, and thought heavy things fell faster and that persisted because they didn’t test it.

4 minutes ago, swansont said:

Great grandmother, perhaps. Curiosity was around long before science. Rigor is a closer relative.

A great-grandmother is a mother.

Gee

49 minutes ago, Gees said:

A great-grandmother is a mother.

Gee

But not of the offspring in question. So not the mother of science, which was your claim.

I just realized "Let's drop everything and go study gravity" would be a nifty title for a popular science article.

Also, just checking, is necessity still the mother of invention? Or is the maternity being contested?

On 8/29/2025 at 1:38 PM, studiot said:

Which may be found in the WAG's guide to the Kar

On 8/29/2025 at 11:54 AM, CharonY said:

My WAG is that early human inquiry into nature involved munching on thing

Haha, exactly! It seems that early humans’ attempts to understand nature were really tied to their tasting and experimenting.
Maybe that’s why eating and observing went hand in hand.

😄