Formal science

Formal sciences are disciplines concerned with formal systems, such as logic, mathematics, statistics, theoretical computer science, information theory, game theory, systems theory, decision theory and portions of linguistics and economics. Whereas the natural sciences seek to characterize physical systems, the formal sciences are concerned with characterizing abstract structures described by sign systems. The formal sciences aid the natural sciences by providing information about the structures the latter use to describe the world, and what inferences may be made about them.