An exact science is any field of science capable of accurate quantitative expression or precise predictions and rigorous methods of testing hypotheses, especially reproducible experiments involving quantifiable predictions and measurements. Physics and Chemistry can be considered as exact sciences in this sense.
The term implies a dichotomy between these fields and others, such as the humanities.
Famous quotes containing the words exact and/or science:
“He who asks fortune-tellers the future unwittingly forfeits an inner intimation of coming events that is a thousand times more exact than anything they may say. He is impelled by inertia, rather than curiosity, and nothing is more unlike the submissive apathy with which he hears his fate revealed than the alert dexterity with which the man of courage lays hands on the future.”
—Walter Benjamin (1892–1940)
“Copernicanism and other essential ingredients of modern science survived only because reason was frequently overruled in their past.”
—Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994)