The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1902-10-16
SCIENCE OF MATHEMATICS.
1t Is Considered the Most Useful and
Indispensable to Humanity of
All Sciences

The question: What is the great
est of all sciences?" has been re-
peatedly asked, but never satisfac-
torily answered. Nobody knows. The
question is similar to that raised in
the ancient fable of the lips and the
tongue, in which each claimed that it
was the most important organ of
speech. The tongue told the lips
that they were useless without it,
and babe them open and see if they
could talk alone. The lips claimed
that they were the most important,
as the tongue could not talk while
they remained closed. SO with most
of the sciences-they are so inter
dependent on each other that they
are nothing alone, states a scientific
authority.
What is the greatest science? Chem
istry? Physics? Mathematics? AS
trOnomy? The natural sciences?
Geology? Paleontology?
1t is obvious those sciences which
are greatest, considered in the light
of their indispensability to human
happiness and well being, are those
which are the most elementary. TAX
ing the word to mean singleness of
composition. The question. then,
narrows itself down to what sci
ences are the most indispensable to
human well-being, and of those,
which are the least complex and de-
pendent on other sciences?"
Examining the claims of those
mentioned above, it is obvious that
astronomy, grandest of conception
and treating as it does of matters
so immense that the earth and all
it contains seems insignificant beside
1t, is nevertheless made up of sew
eral other sciences. Mathematics are
are the very root and heart of astron-
omy, while optics (physics) is it's
means of expression. AS chemistry
and physics are also vital parts of it,
speculation and theory are about the
only parts of it not made up of
other sciences.
The natural sciences can be skipped
at once. 1t requires no argument to
see that the world could dispense
with them before chemistry or ply
sizes.
Chemistry, then, or physics, or
mathematics?
Physics, the study of the phenom-
ena presented for observation by bod
les (Which definition has been
to include the phenomena
of light, heat, sound, electricity and
is so interviewer with
that it is almost a part
of that science. Chemistry, less de-
pendent on the latter than physics,
yet needs physics at every turn. And
physics depends on mathematics.
But what do mathematics depend
on? What science must be at hand
and understood for comprehension
of the principles of the science of
numbers, quantities. volumes, sec
tons, movements? Not one.
To mathematics, then, should be
accorded the place of the most indis-
pensable of the sciences, a position
fitting the onn which among exact
departments o: knowledge is known
as THE Exact Science" the branch
of learning which antedates all 9TH
ers, and on whi:h all others depend.
1t would be idle to say that any
Of the great departments of human
knowledge are greater than any of
the others. All are colossal to the
intellect, as they are pygmies to what
they will be, but conferred by their
usefulness, their indispensability, the
science of quantity, mathematics,
stands at the head of the list. I'M
king among a domain of
subjects as great as they are de-
pendent.