Which do you think is the most important science?

How does a scientist get to "a certain view" in the first place? By thinking...

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If the properties of different materials, the whole Chemistry, has become for the first time the objects that could be predicted from the theory, and not from hypotheses deduced from experiments, could not have been possible without a deep command of Quantum Mechanics.

I'm not quite sure what you're trying to say here. A deep command of quantum mechanics is not at all necessary to do chemistry effectively unless you're doing a physical chemistry branch that is dealing directly with it. But pretty much all other areas are not dependent on it.

I don't seem to have worded that correctly, but what I was trying to say was that Physics doesn't just play a role in engineering, and that Quantum Mechanics has in recent times brought about a predictive success in Chemistry also.

Yes, a deep command of quantum mechanics is not at all necessary to do chemistry effectively, and nor did I imply otherwise, but the point was that chemical behavior could be arrived at purely by theoretical means. Of course you don't necessarily need this theoretical approach in chemistry, because you can simply perform your experiment to arrived at the eventual conclusion (in fact, you can only arrive at the conclusion), but it is the theoretical understanding that explains the result of the experiment. I'm not a chemist to be able to express this idea as clearly as I should, but I hope you understand the point.

And theoretical understanding of chemical reactions comes from, well, understanding chemistry, not on quantum mechanics. Organic chemistry lecturers and researchers across the world can accurately predict the outcome of reactions and carry them without having the slightest knowledge or understanding of quantum mechanics or physical chemistry.

NMR relies on the coupling between atoms which still falls under chemistry, and not physics.

Well, many people would agree with you there, but to ask what science is the most important is to ask a wrong question, if importance is to be understood as influential here.

I don't think that's quite the case. Reactions result from the interactions between atoms/molecules/ions, and any further outcomes depend on the shape, behavior, and anything related to the subatomic nature of those particles, which requires understanding of quantum mechanics. This is why a chemistry course also involves studying quantum mechanics

Of course it's the case! I'm an organic chemist and I know next to nothing about physical chemistry and can accurately predict the outcome of reactions. All you need is an advanced knowledge of how elements and functional groups react (electronegativity, electrophiles, nucleophiles etc), you don't need to know about the quantum scale to do this

Yes, a chemistry course contains quantum mechanical modules because an undergrad degree teaches you about all the branches, I'm not quite sure what your point is? Just because it's taught doesn't mean you have to have an understanding of it to do all areas of chemistry.

So HNMR and CNMR aren't part of chemistry despite the fact we're taught them at degree level and chemists use them continuously? You don't know what you're talking about.

Well, most of the physical properties of elements were found by physics. For example, electronegativity is just a ready-made generalised measurement of how atoms are attracted to electrons, and it was the work of Linus Pauling, which of course demanded quantum mechanics.

Computers and telecommunications rely on principles only treated by (and relevant to) physics. Without them, none of the infrastructures on which we - and the government, emergency services, whatever - rely very heavily on would exist at all.

The question of the thread is: 'Which do you think is the most important science?' Surely that means we are discussing STEM subjects?

Philosophy is not a science course - the degree awarded is a BA (bachelor of arts) not a BSc (bachelor of science).

It's the chemical properties of elements. Chemistry is the study of atoms, so electrons, protons etc are still part of chemistry, the subject doesn't just stop at molecules. And once again, you don't need an advanced understanding of quantum mechanics to be able to predict and carry out reactions.

Organic chemists had no problem doing reactions before quantum mechanics was even discovered, how do you explain that?



And you don't need to know about physical chemistry to predict the outcomes of reactions. And no, you can't always skip the practical approach, because reactions don't always happen the way you think they will. I don't think you would be saying this if you had ever actually been in a lab and done chemical reactions...

As I said, I'm doing a PhD in organic chemistry and I have no problem predicting and analysing reactions despite not having done quantum mechanics since my second year and remembering basically nothing about it..



Silly point to make as then we'd get into the topic of engineering. How nuclear magnetic resonance actually works is dependent on the property of atoms, which is chemistry.