why is knowing Latin/Greek prefixes and suffixes important in science?

Answer 1

Because you can often devise a word's meaning just by knowing the bits and pieces. Whereby, you needn't memorize every single taxonomical name, medical term, etc in order to understand one when you hear it.

It's also helpful in giving you a mental picture of the thing being described - i.e. -

"Cyanide" = "Blue Death" (Cyan=Blue, ide=death, A poison which prevents the ingestor's red blood cells from absorbing/holding oxygen, thus leaving the afflicted person bluish in color)

"Hypothermia" = "Under-Temperature-Condition" (Hypo=under, therm=temperature ia=condition of, A state of being under normal or healthful body temperature.)

See? If you know the Latin root-words, you can devise their general meaning even without having heard the word itself before.

Answer 2

Because so many scientific terms and names are
based on Latin and Greek roots. It's not just the
prefixes and suffixes that are important, but the
entire word in many cases. For example the
names hippopotamus, rhinoceros, rhododendron
and chrysanthemum, are scientific names as well
as common names, and they are all Greek. The
idea that all scientific names are Latin is false.
Linnaeus used Latin in naming organisms, but
since his time Greek and many other languages
have been used. I recently checked a book on
plants from part of Africa to see what proportion
of the names came from which language. Among
fifty names of genera only two were Latin, 38 were
Greek.

Answer 3

Linneaus chose latin to name plants because it is a dead language, because it will not change. Latin in the science world is a universal language. For example... we call a red maple a red maple, but in China it may be called something like, dragon tree, in Canada they may call it Canada tree, but when we call it Acer rubra, each of us knows what the other is referring to.

Basically, it is a way of speaking universally to other scientists! That is the best way to explain it!

Answer 4

because they sometimes "stand in" for a mathematical formula.

Instead of writing out the whole formula, you substitute it for the symbol/prefix.

Answer 5

yes.... i took pharmacuetical courses and most of the root words are latin

Answer 6

because they are part of the language and abbreviations